LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

ffcap- (k$tt 

• Shelf. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



Death of Death 



OR 



A STUDY OF GOD'S HOLINESS IK" CONNECTION WITH 

THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL, IN SO FAK AS 

INTELLIGENT AND KESPONSIBLE 

BEINGS AKE CONCERNED. 



BY 

AN ORTHODOX LAYMAN. 









J. W. RANDOLPH & ENGLISH 

1302 & 4 Main St., Richmond. 
1878. 



t 







Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, 

By the Author, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 




(* PREFACE 



To the preparation of this essay have been devoted the 
hours that could be economised from various other engage- 
ments, during a part of the year just passed. 

It was almost entirely finished before the writer was 
aware of the discussion which has sprung up recently in 
the pulpits and religious newspapers of England and 
America on the subject of future punishment. While, 
therefore, it was prepared without any reference to that 
discussion, its publication has thereby become opportune. 

The first part is devoted chiefly to the presentation of 
the negative side of the argument, or to removing the errors 
and misunderstandings which seem to present impediments 
to a candid consideration of the question. The positive side 
of the argument is fully set forth in the second part, though 
it is foreshadowed in the first. 

Should the conclusions we have reached meet with any 
active opposition, we respectfully ask three things of any 
one, if there be any one, who shall be offended by them — 

First. That he will not criticise the book until he has 
read it. 

Second. Nor till he has taken pains to understand the 
extent and limits of the argument. 

Third. That he will not, as is so often done, set up "men 
of straw" of his own, and claim, when he has triumph- 
antly knocked them down again, that he has answered us; 
but will candidly and fairly examine the arguments that 



iv PEEFACE. 



are here set forth, instead of those which he may choose, 
without any good reason, to impute to us. 

The book is the fruit of deep and solemn convictions. 
We humbly trust that it casts some of the benign beams 
of eternal truth into the dark places of the moral world; 
that it dispels some of the clouds and darknesses which have 
so long hung over the problem of evil; and that it gilds 
with at least some little of the " light from heaven" the 
true relations of man to his Creator. 

Our unceasing prayers shall go up that it may be owned 
and blessed by Him, whose aid in its preparation has been 
unceasingly sought, or else, if not according to His will, 
that it may be brought to naught. 

January, 1878. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAET I, 

The Problem of Evil Incapable of Solution on the Basis of a 
Hopeless Future Punishment, or of Annihilation. 

Page 
Chapter I— Preliminary Narrative and Statement 
of the Question 3 

The Theological Seminary of Virginia — Adjacent Schools — Ke- 
ligious Influences — A Very Pisgah — Bishop Meade's Sermon 
—Its Effects — Visits and Sermons of the Clergy — Mediaeval 
Horrors — The Gates of Hell — Its Lurid Fires — Shocked and 
Terrified Souls — A Mother's Teachings — A Youth of 15 — . 
Conflict in his Bosom — A Child in Darkness — Blind Gropings 
After Light— Seeking a Father's Hand — Stunned — Enforced 
Quiet — The Difficulty Kecognized — The Origin of Evil — 
Night — Searching the Scriptures — Immature Powers — Dawn 
Breaking Gradually — Punishment Clearly Kevealed, and 
Instinctively Accepted— Hopeless Punishment Inconsistent 
With the Holiness of God — Punishment, not Hopeless but 
^Reformatory, Consistent with that Holiness — Noonday. 

Chapter II— Life and Death 17 

The Universal Questions — Whence am I? What am I? Whither 
go I? — The Wonderful Achievements of Science — But Sci- 
ence cannot Answer — Nor can Philosophy — Nor can Ancient 
or Modern Wisdom and Experience — The Scriptures Alone 
can Answer— If their Answer be not True, we are in Mid- 
night Darkness Still — Man, the Prince Imperial of Earth — 
The Breath of God — Made in the Image of God, his Father — 
Made Immortal in Body and Soul — His Immortality Condi- 
tional on Unity with God, who is " the Life"— Forfeited by 



VI CONTENTS, 

Page 
Sin— Death Introduced— Not mere tMssoiutioii of the Flesh, 
as in the Death of Beasts— Death in Man a Condition of the 
Soul or Mind Resulting from Alienation from the u Life of 
God " — Incurred the Instant that he Sinned — Dead while he 
Lives — Resulting from his own Fault. 

Chapter III— Life Renewed— Death Confirmed 32 

The Universal Questions Again— After Death, What?— u If a 
Man Die, shall he Live Again? " — Scripture Alone can An- 
swer — "As in Adam all Die, so in Christ shall all be Made 
Alive" — The Promise not Absolute, but Conditioned on our 
Will and Co-operation — We Need only Strive against Sin and 
Accept Christ — At our "Appointed Time," the Body to 
Earth, the Soul to God — The State of the Soul Afterwards— 
Those "in Christ" Alive Again, the Rest Still Dead— In a 
Conscious State — Rest and Peace for the One, Misery for the 
Other — The Resurrection — Paradise Lost Nothing to Para- 
dise Regained — Immortal Happiness to the Souls of the 
Blessed, Restored to Immortal Bodies — Welcomes from the 
Blessed Dead and all the Company of Heaven-—" The Lost " 
Suffering Bitterly and More Acutely than when on Earth — 
How is God Affected by their Sufferings? — This Solemn 
Question to be Answered in Future Chapters — Review of 
This and the Last Chapter. 

Chapter IY— The Various Theories as to the Condi- 
tion of "The Lost" 45 

The Number of People in the World — The Innumerable Mul- 
titudes that have Lived— A Fearful Statement— Various 
Theories— First, that of Endless and Hopeless Punishment 
—The Two Hostile Parties which Divide those who Hold it— 
Dr. Bledsoe's Theodicy — A Great Explorer — His Discussion 
of the Origin of Evil — Attempt to Prove it Consistent with 
God's Holiness on the Concession of a Hopeless Punish- 
ment — Its Failure — Does not Satisfactorily Explain the Act 
of Creating Man, Knowing that He Would Fall into Hope- 
less Suffering — The Explanation Impossible on that Theory, 



CONTENTS. Vll 

Page 
even for Dr. Bledsoe— His View Reserved for Examination 
in Chapter VI — Second, Theory of Annihilation Contrary to 
our Instincts — Contrary to our Reason — Contrary to Scrip- 
ture — If Credible, more Acceptable than the other. 

Chapter V— The Various Theories as to the Condi- 
tion of "The Lost," Continued 60 

A Still Milder Opinion— Third, The Theory that the Future 
Punishment is Ionian, or for the ^Eon, Age, or Dispensa- 
tion — Its Duration only Stated Indefinitely by Scripture — 
The Punishment there Revealed is Qualitative, not Quantita- 
tive — It is one " Taking Place in Eternity." — Review of all 
the Texts in Scripture that are Usually Thought to Favor a 
Hopeless Punishment — Demonstration that they do Not do 
so — Fourth, The Theory that Future Punishment will En- 
dure as Long as the Sinful Temper Endures, but is Termina- 
ble by Repentance and Restoration to the u Life of God," 
through Christ, in the Next World as well as in this — Its Truth 
to be Established by the Ensuing Chapters. 

Chapter VI— Sin not Necessarily Self-Perpetuating, 
and its Punishment not, therefore, Unending 81 

An Infinite Punishment not Communicable by Human Lan- 
guage — Nor to the Human Mind — Eternity not Thinkable, 
and, therefore, Incommunicable — Utmost Space or Time In- 
telligible only as Being Indefinite — Infinite Happiness of the 
Blessed Dead, not Resting on any Such Indefinite Words as 
" Everlasting," " Eternal," &c, but on their Heirship with 
Christ — Bledsoe's Theodicy admits a Qualitative Punishment, 
but Argues that it will Never End Because the Sinner will 
Never Cease to Sin — Not Sustained by Scripture — Nor by the 
Nature of Sin — Nor by the Nature of Man — Sin a Disease, 
but not an Incurable One — Man the Same Being, Here and 
Hereafter, in all Essential Qualities — If Capable of Repen- 
tance Here, why not Hereafter? — Death Here, and Death 
Hereafter the Same in Kind, only Differing in Degrees of 
Pain— " Death Eternal," " Death Everlasting " not Scrip- 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

Page 
ture Phrases — Bledsoe's Theodicy Seems to Justify the Crea- 
tion of one Sure to Fall into Hopeless Misery, Because this 
World is a Dim Speck of Vitality in a Boundless Dominion 
of Light, and was Necessary to the Glory of God and of His 
Universe — Not Sound— God's Justice and Mercy Over all His 
Works, the Least as well as the Greatest — No Glory could 
be so Advanced or could Justify the Creation of Beings, the 
Heirs of Misery Without End — Sin and Death will Triumph 
in no case over God — He will Triumph in every case over 
them — God can Save all His Miserable Creatures — Is willing 
to do so — That He has Made Provision to Effectuate it Ulti- 
mately is to be Proved in Part II of this Book — Thus His 
Holiness may be Vindicated even in Connection with the 
Existence of Evil. 



PAET II. 

The Problem of Evil Capable of Solution on the Basis of a Fu- 
ture Punishment not Hopeless but Reformatory. 

Chapter I— The Ministry of Sorrow ; and Herein, of 
the u Anger" of God, His u Wrath," His "Ven- 
geance" 103 

Scripture Truth Conveyed to us in Paradoxes or Seeming Con- 
tradictions — We are to Draw the Resultant Truth — Between 
God's Anger and His Loving Kindness, His Wrath and His 
Tender Mercy, His Vengeance and His Love — Between His 
Hardening the Hearts of Pharaoh and the Jews, and His 
Tempting no one with Evil — Between His Unchangeableness, 
and His Repenting 4i at His Heart" of the Creation of Man — 
Thus Learning how God Feels Towards us — These Harsher 
Terms not Literal, but an Accommodation to our Mode of 
Viewing Things — Resultant, He Hates the Sin but Loves 
the Sinner — His Anger, Wrath, Vengeance, Consistent with 
the Tenderest Love for the Worst Offenders — Our Life a Pil- 
grimage — A Travelling School— God our Schoolmaster 



CONTENTS. IX 

Page 
Teaching His Children from the Love of Them— The Les- 
son—He Permits us to Build Tabernacles, if they are Types 
of the Heavenly City — The Strange Tabernacles we Build — 
They Must Come Down — The Mourning over their Fall — 
The Precious Gif c — If we will not Learn the Lesson, What 
Then ? — Earthly Parentage the Type of the Divine Feelings 
and Conduct Towards us — The Type Chosen by God Him- 
self—The Two Illustrated— " The Lord will not Cast off 
Forever" — Another and Severer Probation to be Accorded 
to those who Fail in This — On that Condition all Sorrows 
here are Good Things — The Ministry of Sorrow a Redeem- 
ing Influence. 

Chapter II— The Ministry of Sorrow, Continued ; and 
Herein of Inequalities ; of Fortune, of Spiritual 
Opportunities, and of Spiritual Susceptibilities. 124 

God's Dealings with the Individual — Job's Wonderful History — 
Teaching that God's Works Specially in the Case of each of 
us ; Works not on a Fixed and Inexorable Law, but on the 
Principles of Equity ; Employs for our Good every Agency 
in Heaven, Earth and Hell ; Adapts every Circumstance 
of Fortune and Condition to our Peculiar Cases, and does it 
all for our Keformation — Cases Illustrating the Various Ine- 
qualities of Life — One Possessed of every Temporal and 
Spiritual Advantage and Opportunity, Contrasted with one 
Entirely Destitute of Them — Kev. James Chisholm Con- 
trasted with Various Men — Men Endowed by Nature with 
Violent Passions — Men Endowed with Weak Spiritual Sus- 
ceptibilities — These Inequalities Irreconcilable with the 
Justice of God, on the Theory of a Hopeless Future Punish- 
ment — On our Theory they all are Entirely Keconcilable with 
God's Justice — This Illustrated by the Principles Set Forth 
in Job's Case, and by the Infinitely \aried Destinies of the 
Multitudes of our Eace in the Occupations of the Future Life. 



X CONTENTS. 

Page 
Chapter III— The Divine Plan of Creation and of 
Salvation 151 

The Plan of Both Considered and Devised as a Whole in the 
Counsels of the Eternal Trinity — Made in the Image of God, 
we may Eeverently Conceive that Plan, in Some dim Mea- 
sure— The Plan Set Forth, in the Light of Scripture — The 
Principle .of Law and Morals on which the Weight of Con- 
curring Texts is to be Estimated — Texts Set Forth at Large 
which are Deemed Conclusive Proof of the Plan of Salva- 
tion above Propounded — They are Strong in Themselves — 
They Support each other with Cumulative Force — They 
Support each other in Geometrical Ratio — They Present a 
Conclusive Case — They Sot Forth a New Probation — The 
Consequent Capacity for Repentance in the Future World — 
The Ultimate Restoration of all Things to the Love and Fa- 
vor of God— The Harmony of the Universe. 

Chapter IV— Objectors and Objections 178 

Partisan Theologians — Denunciations of all who Question the 
Infallibility of Accepted Dogma — Unnecessary Conflict be- 
tween Revelation and True Science — Fears that Betray Lack 
of Faith — Welcome to Honest Investigators — And to New 
Facts — Honest Thinkers — Their Errors — Fears of Disturbing 
the Faith and Repose of Simple Souls who Implicitly Be- 
lieve — They Would have Forbidden the Reformation — Would 
Stop all Progress Hereafter Towards Infinite Truth — Objec- 
tions to Reviewing the Doctrine of Future Punishment Con- 
sidered — The Truth to be Uttered by all Before all other 
Things — Consequences not within our Ken — In God's Con- 
trol Alone — Men Wrest all Scriptures and all Truth — Yet 
This did not Silence Paul — The Doctrine of Hopeless Future 
Punishment an Impediment to Religion — It does not Produce 
Repentance, because Generally Disbelieved — Even by those 
who Accept it Dogmatically — Incredible, Because Hope is 
Indestructible — Less Effective than the Doctrine of a Refor- 
matory Punishment, which is Credible by all — Illustrations— 



CONTENT^. XI 

Page 
The Apostles' Creed Contains " Life Ever-Lasting"; but not 
Ever-Lasting Punishment — Hopeless Punishment Not a Test 
of Orthodoxy in the Episcopal Church — Her Wise Course — 
False Ideas of Earthly Pleasure — False Ideas of the Com- 
parative Guilt of Different Sins— False Ideas of the Effect of 
Kepentance — " Judge Not " — Illustration. 

Chapter V— Keview and Conclusion 201 

Appeal Against Misrepresentation — Or Misunderstanding- 
Restatement of Conclusions Reached — Restatement of Heads 
of argument — Universal Harmonies — Te Deum Laudamus — 
"Conclusion of the Whole Matter'' — Let no one Wrest it — 
Future Punishment, Though not Hopeless, may Exceed in 
Anguish all that we can now Realize — But will Attain the 
End for which it was Ordained, the Instruction of Men and 
Angels, and the Ultimate Destruction of All Evil. 



ERRATA. 

Page 11, loth line from bottom, for did know read did not know. 
18, lines 11, 13, striKe out quotation marks. 

21, 11th line from bottom, for this, read thee. 

22, 4th and 5th lines, put in quotation marks, u as well might 

pigmies lift a mountain from the sea," 

23, 1st line, for molded, read moulded. 
25, 18th line, for lent, read bent. 

37, 11th liue from bottom, for had, read has. 
46, 7th line, for adherance, read adherence. 
46, 12th line from bottom, for ipsi, read ipse. 
46, 9th line from bottom, iovfour, read few. 
63, 4th line, f oi dxardAUzoz, read dfcardhro^. 
70, 14th line frum bottom, for dcdioz, read dcdtO£. 
96, 14th line, for is, read are. 
98, 14th line from bottom, for union, read unison. 
108, 14th line from oottom, iorpityeth, read pitieth. 

118, last line, for has Carcassonne, read has his Carcassonne* 

119, 3d line, for posession, read possession. 
125, last line, for belittleing, read belittling. 
136, 10th line from bottom, for detre read d'etre. 
140, 12th line, for or, read on. 

143, 7th line from bottom, for each, read every. 

144, 11th line from oottom, for replyest, read repliest. 

160, 6th and 7th lines, for state knowledge, read state of know- 
ledge. 

164, 5th line from bottom, for the, read they. 

170, 1st line, for no, read on. 

174, 9th line from bottom, for second, read second. 

181, 16th line, for theoglogians, read theologians. 

188, 9th line, for oe made /ar more realistic, read be far more 
keenly realized. 



PART I. 



THE PROBLEM OF EVIL NOT CAPABLE OF SOLUTION 
ON THE BASIS OF A HOPELESS FUTURE PUNISH- 
MENT, OR OF ANNIHILATION. 



THE DEATH OF DEATH. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY NARRATIVE AND STATEMENT OF THE 

QUESTION. 

ON a range of elevated hills about three miles from Al- 
exandria, in the State of Virginia, and commanding an 
extensive and beautiful bird's eye view of that town, of 
Washington city, of the Potomac river and of the adjacent 
country, stands the Theological Seminary of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church of the diocese. 

A little more than thirty-five years ago there stood on 
the same range of hills on either side of the Seminary, and 
distant from it a quarter and half a mile respectively, two 
large schools for boys. One of these schools still exists 
there, growing in vigor and usefulness as its years increase. 

The boys of these two schools worshiped at the Semi- 
nar}' chapel, located on the central hill of the range on 
which the three stood, and the two tides of buoyant and 
vigorous youth met and mingled within its walls on Sab- 
bath mornings and evenings, and at other seasons, each 
receiving and bestowing the inevitable sympathies of such 
association. On the boys of these two schools were ex- 
erted ceaselessly the holy influences of God's blessed 
Word, intensified in their effects by the heavenly atmos- 
phere of this " School of the Prophets " which lay between 



4 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

them — an atmosphere which, to the spiritually-minded, 
seemed a perpetual incense crowning that favored hill, 
and rising up, day and night, in 'grateful adoration to 
God. At least thus it seemed to one of those boys who 
lived there for five years, from 1838 to 1843 ; and, as in 
after life, even to this day, he has looked forth on this sad 
earth, and has seen five generations of the heralds of the 
cross who left that hill while he was there, bearing the glad 
tidings of God's peace with man, and planting the Rose of 
Sharon in every desert land, he has felt and still feels that 
what to him was then seeming only, was in truth a great 
reality. For these thirty-five years, in America, in Europe, 
in Asia, in Africa and in the " isles of the sea," these five 
generations of Christian champions have waged perpetual 
war against the kingdom of "sin, Satan and death," and 
revealed the glorious light of the "Sun of Righteousness" 
to those who "sit in darkness." Some of them, veteran 
soldiers of the "King of Kings," still fight in the fore-front 
of this life-long battle; while the greater part, at His com- 
mand, have sheathed their swords, yielded their places to 
younger soldiers and have themselves entered into the full 
blaze of that uncreated light, which, with feebler rays, once 
attended their steps and lit up the gloom of sin and sorrow 
which surrounded them here. 

In addition to the sacred influences of the place itself? 
it was frequently favored, from time to time, by the pre- 
sence of distinguished preachers — Bishops and Presbyters— 
from all parts of the country, on official and other visits* 
bringing with them fresh sheaves of holy zeal, of prayer, 
of praise, and of the manna of the Word, all ripened by 
mature experience and increase of faith and love. Such 
means of grace as were enjoyed there could not, surely, be 
surpassed on earth ; and, doubtless, thousands have looked 



STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 5 

back on that trysting place of the saints — one at least 
has— as a very Pisgah, from which were often caught bright 
glimpses of the "promised land." 

On one of his official visits, during the period stated, the 
late venerable Bishop Meade, of Virginia, occupied the 
pulpit, and preached from the text: " Escape for thy life: 
look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; 
escape to the mountain lest thou be consumed" (Gen. xix, 
17). That sermon lingers in the memory to this day. It 
produced a tremendous effect on scores of youthful minds 
and hearts, as well as upon those of riper years. The 
Bishop returned to the discharge of other duties in various 
parts of his large diocese, but left behind him a most pro- 
found interest and anxiety about spiritual things. The 
opportunity was not to be lost. Religious services, prayer 
meetings, sermons, were multiplied. Distinguished preach- 
ers came from different directions to participate, and the 
impressions made by the Bishop's address were deepened 
and prolonged by every means in the power of the Chris- 
tian ministers and people of the neighborhood. As might 
have been expected, many who had scarcely bestowed 
a thought on their soul's salvation were brought un- 
der the influence of sacred truths; while many, who 
were faithful before, were refreshed and quickened. For 
months these scenes went on, and the effect on the two 
schools was wonderful. Many, of course, afterwards fell 
away, but others could date from that period, their earnest 
attention to the subject of religion. 

All this was good — how good we shall only know here- 
after — but now is to be mentioned that without which this 
book would never have been written. 

Unfortunately, in that day more than in this, the doc- 
trine of exquisite and unending punishment was considered 



6 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

the most effectual weapon that could be wielded from the 
pulpit, and was taught with the energy and described with 
the painful minuteness of the mediaeval age. The gates 
of hell were constantly kept open, and the lurid glare of 
its pitiless fires was cast upon trembling congregations with 
relentless pertinacity. Among the ministers who visited 
our " hill of Zion " in this period were some whose preach- 
ing was of this type. Their chief force was expended on 
this theme, and souls already seeking to escape the burden 
of their sins, and feeling their way after Christ, were so 
shocked and terrified, that their eyes were kept fixed on 
the abyss below instead of being lifted in love to him who 
bore their sins for them "in his own body on the tree." 

It is impossible to record here the spiritual experiences 
of various individuals during this eventful period — time 
would fail to do so. One case only, better known than that 
of others, will be recorded. 

Among those who attended one of these schools was a 
youth of about fifteen years of age. Perhaps Samuel's 
mother did not give him to the Lord with a more yearning 
desire that he would accept the gift, than did the mother 
of this boy from the day of his birth. At this early age 
he believed himself a Christian. He knew no period of his 
life that he did not look up to God as his Father, and feel 
that he was reconciled to him by the blood of Christ. He 
rejoiced at the religious interest around him, and greatly 
enjoyed the increased earnestness and zeal manifested on 
every hand in the prayers and praises of the people of God. 
He had not as yet been confirmed, waiting for that purpose, 
whether right or wrong, a maturer age. Now, of course, 
the subject pressed earnestly on him, and would have 
ended in his confirmation, but for the distress of mind ex- 
cited by the preaching above referred to. 



STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 7 

He heard learned, eloquent and holy men, to whom he 
looked up with reverence, constantly pouring out in dismal 
tones the dirges of the damned. They went into the mi- 
nutest particulars, dissecting the lost soul and displaying 
its quivering nerves, agonized beneath the relentless wrath 
of God. Illustrations such as these were constantly em- 
ployed : 

You know what exquisite agony it is to burn your finger, 
how it aches and throbs with almost intolerable anguish — 
now imagine your whole body bathed in a fierce undying 
flame, and conceive, if you can, the unutterable torture to 
which you will be subjected; while all the time the blazing 
eye of an offended God is bent in vengeance on your 
smitten soul. Could you endure one instant of it ? Will 
you neglect to come to Him now at the risk of such hideous 
and everlasting ruin? Ah ! that's the worst of it — everlasting 
woe, never-ending fire, torture unspeakable and eternal. And 
consider what eternity is. A school- session seems a long 
time to you — a lifetime seems to you almost unending — 
but this is nothing to eternity. If it should be your dismal 
fate to sink into that dreadful abyss of hideous ruin, you 
will spend a lifetime, yea, many lifetimes, but eternity will 
have just begun. You will abide there till after the story of 
this world shall have been told, till sun, moon and stars 
shall have been burned up, till the elements shall have 
melted with fervent heat, and the heavens shall have rolled 
together like a scroll; but eternity will have just begun. Mil- 
lions and billions of ages will roll away over your devoted 
head, and these multiplied by countless millions and bil- 
lions more shall pass away; but to your agonized cry — 
"How long shall these intolerable burnings eat into my 
soul?" — the dreadful voice of your " Father in Heaven," 
with appalling thunder, shall reply — " Eternity has just begun, 



8 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

and it shall never, never see an end of your well-deserved 
misery and despair. Hope has never entered your drear 
abode, nor can her lightsome wing cross the dread abyss 
between you and this heavenly land." And then His 
dreadful eye shall blaze through and through all the dark 
secrets of your soul, and you will lie still, paralyzed by 
that awful gaze — the helpless victim of eternal death. 

In this style many solemn services were saddened; 
and subdued souls shrank away in dreadful horror at their 
liability to miss the "narrow way" and fall into this broad 
and dismal gulf — the descent to which was described to be 
so easy that by far the largest portion of mankind would 
surely sink beneath its waves. It was not a wholesome 
fear, such as a true interpretation and presentment of God's 
holy word is sure to produce; but a dumb, paralyzing fear 
that crushed sensitive souls, and made the bold and skep- 
tical blaspheme. God was painted sometimes (of course 
unconsciously by the preacher) as a remorseless tyrant, 
but at the same time described as just — much in the same 
way, though not in the same terms, as Melancthon once 
maintained that " God wrought all things, evil as well as 
good;" that he was "the author of David's adultery and 
the treason of Judas, as well as of Paul's conversion." 
Sometimes sermons were preached describing an offended 
God, in tone, if not in words, as bad as the following from 
a sermon — " Sinners in the hands of an angry God " — by 
even so great and good a man as Jonathan Edwards: "He 
will crush you under his feet without mercy; He will 
crush out your blood and make it fly, and it shall be 
sprinkled on His garments so as to stain all his raiment. 
He will not only hate you, but He will have you in the 
utmost contempt," &c. Inspired wisdom (Isaiah lxiii, 3) 
uses a portion of this language in a highly figurative de- 



STATEMENT OP THE QUESTION. 9 

scription of the triumph of Christ over the Gentile enemies 
of Jerusalem or of his church. But here, man dares to 
add to it; to apply it enlarged, intensified and literally to 
God's alleged rage and vengeance against the individual sin- 
ner; and to paint the great and good Jehovah as crushing 
under His feet without mercy His helpless creature — crushiny 
out his blood and making it fly. 

Under such preaching the display of the love of Christ, 
which was faithfully and tenderly made, lost nearly all its 
force. The shocked and terrified soul could not see it in 
its true beauty and power, through the murky mists and 
fogs thus cast around it. 

The effect of such teaching on the youth, whose spiritual 
experiences we are describing, was unutterably horrible. 
He had looked habitually on the benigner side of spiritual 
truth. He had looked on God as his " Father in Heaven," 
and in raising his eyes by night or by day to the firmament 
above him, or looking around him upon earth, he could 
see written everywhere in rainbow beauty over his visible 
universe, on matter and on man, in the light of His holy 
word, that alluring and inspiring truth " God is Love" — a 
truth older than when "the stars sang together and all the 
sons of God shouted for joy" — a truth beaming from the 
primeval councils of the Eternal Trinity, but only mani- 
fested in its full beauty and amazing glory when the Divine 
Redeemer "tasted death for every man" (Heb. ii, 9). 

The new teaching he was now receiving, the new reve- 
lation of God, made to him by those whom he justly re- 
vered, and whose arguments he was unable to answer, 
filled him with dismay — not for himself, for he be- 
lieved that he was safe in Christ, but at the overthrow of 
his sweet visions of the Father's face, at the dreadful ques- 
tion, "was he indeed such as he was described?" At first 



10 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

appalled, and then stunned as by a sudden blow, he ceased 
almost to think, his joy in God withered like a flower be- 
neath a hoar-frost, he lost all interest in the sports or occu- 
pations of boyhood, he frequented solitudes — in thickets, 
in garrets and in desert places — seeking rest and finding 
none; agonizing for peace in prayers which seemed not to 
penetrate the heavens, but to rebound as from a brazen 
sky. Thus he suffered from a sense of untold loneliness 
and desertion ; as a child in outer darkness, who wails for 
the guidance of its father's hand. 

And so long months of anguish passed, until it seemed 
that if it should continue indefinitely, his reason would 
give way and the darkness of utter nothingness would 
settle down around him. Meantime, his interest in relig- 
ious things being known, he was repeatedly invited to be 
a candidate for confirmation; but to the surprise of others, 
he sadly declined without assigning any reason for it. In 
truth, he feared now that he was a hardened sinner, obsti- 
nate, self-willed, and, perhaps, possessed of the devil, since 
he did not accept with joy, but groaned in spirit, and 
struggled against a recognition of God as now disclosed to 
him. He felt that he did not believe what had been 
preached, and fought against his unbelief. He did not 
dare deliberately to repudiate it or to search into these 
great questions. He feared he might be guilty of blasphe- 
mous presumption in doing so. He even feared that he 
was an atheist or an infidel, setting up idols of his own 
for worship, instead of bowing down in humble self-re- 
nunciation before the true God of heaven and earth, who 
had been disclosed to him in his most fearful attributes by 
his ministers, in order that he might be aroused from his 
fond dreams, and seek the salvation of his soul in a diffe- 
rent way from that which he had hitherto believed the 



STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 11 

right way. He therefore kept all his sad and troubled 
thoughts shut up in his own bosom. When Christian min- 
isters and others tendered their sympathy and aid and 
sought his confidence, he did not extend it to them, be- 
cause he was unwilling that his unbelief and hardness of 
heart should be known to them; for he felt that he 
could not make them understand the whole case, and 
that they would condemn him, and so increase his misery 
instead of comforting him. To God alone was he willing 
to confess it all; for though he scarcely knew now whether 
he prayed to the God of his childhood or the God of late 
revealed to him, yet down in his heart of heart he felt 
that the Father of all was still his Father; that He knew 
the end from the beginning ; that he knew all his secret 
motives, and saw and sympathized with his helpless crea- 
ture struggling for light, and feeling after him if haply he 
might find him. 

As before said, he had been stunned, and therefore for a 
long time he did know precisely the cause of his condition. 
Besides, his wearied mind and heart shrank like an ex- 
posed nerve from an analysis of his thoughts. It was 
only after long months of dumb, still suffering, and then 
gradually, step by step, that he was enabled to realize and 
define plainly to himself the causes of his malady. 

At last it shaped itself in his mind thus: 

First. He had been taught by those who were beyond 
doubt striving to know God for themselves and in order 
that they might teach others; by those whom he justly 
loved and revered as ministers of Christ's gospel; by those 
who were his saints, as surely as were any on earth or in 
heaven, that the God whom he worshiped with the sim- 
ple faith of childhood as a God of love — love infinite and 
divine to all His creatures on earth — was in truth a God of 



12 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

love to only a portion of them, such as should come to 
Christ in this brief life, but was a God of vengeance, infi- 
nite, divine, unending and inexorable, to the far larger 
number. 

Second. If this were so, the question came with resist- 
less force, in spite of the dread of offending God — in spite 
of the dread that it was a suggestion of the devil — in spite 
of conscious weakness of finite intellect and ignorance of 
things Divine — why, then, did the God of love, of infinite 
tenderness, of boundless compassion, create unending mil- 
lions of beings, endowed with exquisite capacity for joy or 
sorrow, for happiness or misery; endowed even with divine 
capacity for them, because made "in his image, after his 
likeness," when he foreknew in the councils of eternity, 
that the large majority of them would, the moment after 
their creation (for life is but a moment in the eternal scale), 
sink into utter and hopeless mortal and immortal agony, 
to endure as long as God himself should exist? 

He thus found himself confronting that dread question, 
which has perplexed the ages, but which had never given 
him a moment's uneasiness before — the question of the 
Origin of Evil 

The preachers, above-mentioned, had repeatedly asked 
and answered this question in the course of their sermons, 
and their answers had always been " we cannot tell except 
by saying it is the will of God," But this gave no peace. 
He had read what Pollock said of it in u The Course of 
Time": 

"In mind, in matter, much was difficult 
To understand : but what in deepest night 
Retired ; inscrutable, mysterious, dark, 
Was evil ; God's decrees ; and deeds decreed 
Responsible. Why God, the just and good, 



STATEMENT OP THE QUESTION. 13 

Omnipotent and wise, should suffer sin 

To rise. Why man was free, accountable; 

Yet God foreseeing, overruling all. 

Where'er the eye could turn, whatever track 

Of moral thought it took, by reason's torch, 

Or Scripture's led, before it still this mount 

Sprung up, impervious, insurmountable ; 

Above the hnman stature rising far ; 

Horizon of the mind — surrounding still 

The vision of the soul with clouds and gloom. 

Yet did they oft attempt to scale its sides, 

And gain its top. ****** 

To pass it was no doubt desirable ; 

And few of any intellectual size, 

That did not sometime in their day attempt ; 

But all in vain ; for as the distant hill, 

Which on the right, or left, the traveler's eye 

Bounds, seems advancing as he walks, and oft 

He looks, and looks, and thinks to pass ; but still 

It forward moves and mocks his baffled sight, 

Till night deseends and wraps the scene in gloom ; 

So did this moral height the vision mock ; 

So lifted up its dark and cloudy head 

Before the eye, and met it evermore." 

Deeply did our youthful sufferer feel the truth of all 
this, on the theory of God's moral government which had 
alarmed him. He felt in his inmost soul that that theory 
had wrapt in the gloom of a rayless night all the scenery 
of earth and heaven which had hitherto gladdened his 
eyes. But both his mind and heart repelled that the- 
ory. He now remembered that our blessed Saviour had 
said "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have 
eternal life; and they are they which testify of me" (John 
v, 39). He therefore ventured at last, before abandoning 
himself to despair, to examine the question for himself as 
well as he could, in the light of his feeble and immature 



i4 the Math of death. 

reason, guided and chastened by the very word of God 
himself. But his effort was, for the present, vain. The 
burden he had borne had broken his springs, and the 
mind, unable to bear the intolerable load any longer, 
ceased to exert itself, and settled down into stolid inaction 
or restless rest. No formal effort was afterwards made to 
grapple vigorously and decisively with his difficulty ; but 
gradually, by meditation, prayer, an I the reading of God's 
Word alone (for on this subject he read no other book), light 
dawned ray by ray upon his soul, till in about ten years 
after that gloomy night had settled 'down upon him, his 
whole firmament was radiant with peace and beauty and 
perfect repose, in the consciousness of God's love and 
mercy indissolubly bound up with his justice, in the con- 
sciousness that justice and mercy are only human terms 
for the same Divine attribute. 

If we are not deceived in supposing that this result was 
not a delusion — if peace was really and fairly obtained 
after these ten years of sorrow and suffering, then surely 
the mode in which it was secured is important to be known. 
How, then, was it obtained? As usual in all such cases, 
by the simplest means — by eliminating from the accepted 
dogma nothing of all its terrible proportions but the single 
element of hopelessness. 

First, then, he accepts with others the awful truth of 
eternal punishment; but he accepts it with the limitations 
prescribed alike by reason and by Scripture. He believes 
that sin, with all its consequences in this life and the next, 
alike, has for its sole and terrible end alienation from God, 
who is the Life, and that so long as that alienation exists, 
whether here or hereafter, so long will its consequences — 
shame and misery, by the Scriptures called death — exist; 
that if the one be unending, so also is the other; that if 



STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION. 15 

sin be unending, so also will be condemnation; or, in other 
words, sin unending is death unending; that this is the 
Scripture meaning of eternal punishment — a punishment 
co-existing with the sinful state; but that though eternal 
in this sense, it is not necessarily unending, because death 
does not destroy any of man's capacities, whether that of 
repentance or other, and because we are warranted both 
by Scripture and by reason to believe that if at any time 
any of God's creatures should seek restoration to his favor, 
infinite compassion would respond. He does not think 
reason or Scripture forbid us to suppose man capable of 
repentance in another world, and that alone is the condi- 
tion of reconciliation to God through Christ in this world 
or the next. Finally, he believes that if the sole and ter- 
rible end of sin is alienation from God, and the conse- 
quent destruction of the harmony of His universe, so much 
more is the sole and unspeakable glorious end of the sac- 
rifice of the Son of God, the reconciliation of the creature 
with the Creator, and the consequent restoration of that 
harmony. 

Second. On the concession that future misery in the world 
to come, though eternal, in a certain sense, is not necessarily 
unending; that though unspeakably terrible and of indefi- 
nite duration, it is not necessarily hopeless ; that in the future, 
as in the present, it results from sin, and is coterminous with 
it; that repentance and return to Christ are the eternally or- 
dained antidotes to the poison of sin — the goodness and 
love of God in the creation of man can be demonstrated, 
even in connection with the existence of evil. Nay, more, 
it can be shown that though God is not responsible for the 
existence of evil, except in so far as the creation of a free 
agent has made him so, yet that its existence has been 
turned into a blessing, not merely for a portion of man- 



16 THE DEATH OP DEATH. 

kind, but for every intelligent creature "in heaven and in 
earth and under the earth." 

The following chapters are designed to display the argu- 
ment by which these conclusions are established. They 
have brought unspeakable repose on these great questions 
for now more than a quarter of a century to one suffering 
soul. If by God's grace their rehearsal shall do the same 
for other sufferers, surely years of suffering would be amply 
compensated. 

If the argument is based on sound reason, and supported 
by a true interpretation of the Scriptures, as it is believed to 
be, it is founded on a rock. If it be not so supported, it is 
worth nothing, however sound it may appear in the light 
of reason alone. 



LIFE AND DEATH. 17 



CHAPTER II. 

LIFE AND DEATH. 

IN any effort to ascertain the character of the future state, 
it is essential that we should first discover the nature 
of life and death in general. Without a clear understand- 
ing on this point we shall vainly endeavor to comprehend 
that future state, or even to know how there can be any 
future state at all. Confusion of thought on the threshold 
has produced here, as in all cases, much of the existing 
error on the whole subject. Let us then patiently search 
for a true view of these wonderful phenomena. 

Every man and woman of ordinary intelligence some- 
times asks, with anxious foreboding — "Whence am I? 
Whither am I going? What is to be the end of this 
strange existence? Where shall I be when dissolution 
closes up this mortal career?" These momentous ques- 
tions have gone up from the human heart ever since man was 
created. They make up the universal cry. They force 
themselves in our hours of pleasure, and blend themselves 
inextricably with all our sorrows. In times of bereave- 
ment, of loss, of perplexity, and especially of danger, they 
spring up spontaneously and demand an answer. Even 
the most degraded heathen, sunk in midnight darkness, 
vainly asks of heaven and earth the meaning of life, and 
peers anxiously into the unknown future. 

If we consider these questions from a merely human 
stand-point, we are haunted by myriads of dark and 
doubtful surmises. Like children moving with beating 



18 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

hearts and trembling steps .through long- deserted and 
dust-covered halls in the ghostly twilight, we are terrified 
by mysterious voices, and still more mysterious silences. 
Even that prince of philosophers and moralists, the peer- 
less Socrates, here found his sublime and life-long wisdom 
to be little better protection against alarm than the igno- 
rance of the little child whom he so much resembled in 
humility. His glorious dreams of immortality were, at 
last, mere dreams, mere trembling hopes, as he himself 
confessed. 

Modern science has extended its " discoveries in every 
direction throughout the visible and invisible universe, 
but throws no light on these great questions." What has 
it not achieved? It has measured the earth from pole to 
pole, mapped it out into scientific Empires, Kingdoms and 
Provinces ; and told the story of everything on its surface, 
in its caves, and on its mountain tops. It has analyzed 
the waters of all the oceans, and become familiar with its 
multiform inhabitants. It has laid off on its restless and 
fickle waves great highways for the monarch ships, and 
marked these highways with invisible but easily-read 
mileposts. It has asked of the subtle winds, and the 
winds have answered whither they went, and have then 
been harnessed to every out-going ship, enabling it to select 
with certainty that which would bear it most safely and 
quickly to its desired port. It has descended into the 
bowels of the earth and of the ocean; forced from the re- 
luctant womb of the one all the treasures carefully hoarded 
there during its long travail, and from the opened maw 
of the other its primeval secrets. It has tunnelled the one 
for highways at its will, and on the low lying spinal column 
of the other it has strung a little nerve that throbs with 
vital force, and unites in the bonds of instant communica- 



LIFE AHD DEATH. W 

tion worlds divided by its waste of waters. It has bowed 
down over a little piece of magie crystal, and new worlds 
of active life have sprung from the invisible as if created 
by it. It has weighed the sun with his whole system to a 
pound. It has analyzed the very materials of which he 
is composed, and told his separate and compound ele- 
ments. It has defined his multiform motions — axial, 
spiral, orbital. It has catalogued the stars, and made 
them familiar acquaintances — noting their composition, 
distances, and stupendous movements. It has turned 
its wondrous glasses on little mist-spots scattered in 
great numbers through the sky, but scarcely distinguish- 
able from refracted star-light — and lo ! from abysmal 
depths new firmaments have broken out in almost intole- 
rable splendor, radiant with a Divine beauty, and so sug- 
gestive of the u music of the spheres," that in man's deep 
soul he seems to hear as still prolonged the choral songs 
which were raised when the " morning stars sang together." 
Take an example — a golden shield of packed suns in 
the constellation Hercules. When Sir William Herschel 
saw it for the first time through his great reflector, "it 
almost made him leap with mingled astonishment and 
delight." An eminent astronomer doubts "whether any 
person ever saw it for the first time through a large tele- 
scope without a shout of wonder." Light flying at the 
rate of 192,060 miles a second has taken 2,000 years to 
reach us from this object of wonderful glory. But this 
amazing distance is almost within hand-reach of us as 
compared with others of those little mist-spots of which 
we have spoken. There is a nebula in Andromeda. It is 
" easily shown to be so far away that the light by which 
we see it must sl>ow it as it was at least a million years 
ago, instead of as it is to-night. The rays have been all 



20 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

this time charging across the void at the rate of 192,000 
miles a second," and its breadth across the sky is 30,000 
years as light flies. In this survey "the fifty-three-foot 
reflector is surveyor-general, and a light sprite carries the 
chain." (Vid Ecce Ccehtm, pp. 139-146.) 

Professor Mitchel, in a lecture on astronomy, after re- 
viewing its mighty facts, said that it seemed to him that 
the "wild dream of the German poet (Jean Paul Richter) 
was more than realized." God called man into the vesti- 
bule of Heaven, saying, "Come up higher, and I will show 
you the glory of my house," and to His angels that stood 
about the throne, He said — "take him, strip him of his 
robes of flesh ; cleanse his affections ; put a new breath 
into his nostrils, but touch not his human heart — the 
heart that fears and hopes and trembles." A moment, 
and it was done ; and the man stood ready for his unknown 
voyage. Under the guidance of a mighty angel, with 
sounds of flying pinions, they sped away from the battle- 
ments of heaven. Sometime, on the mighty angels' wings, 
they fled through Saharas of darkness, wildernesses of 
death. At length, from a distance not counted save in the 
arithmetic of heaven, light beamed upon them — a sleepy 
flame, as seen through a fleecy cloud. They sped on their 
terrible speed to meet the light ; the light with lesser speed 
came to meet them. In a moment the blazing of suns 
around them — a moment the wheeling of planets : then 
came long eternities of twilights; then again appeared 
more constellations, one succeeding another around their 
path, above, below, and on either hand in countless num- 
bers, in endless complexity of amazing forms and magni- 
tudes, and with intervening infinitudes of darkness and of 
space. 

Suddenly, as thus they sped from eternity to eternity 



LIFE AND DEATH. 21 

over abysmal worlds, a cry arose that systems more mys- 
terious, worlds more billowy, other heights and other 
depths, were coming, were nearing, were at hand. At last 
the man sank down shuddering, and weeping, and crying 
"Angel, I can go no further; insufferable is the glory of 
God; let me lie down in the grave and hide myself from 
the Infinitude of the Universe, for end there is none." 
"End is there none?" demanded the angel. And from the 
glittering stars that shone around, there came a choral 
shout "End, is there none?" "End is there none?" again 
demanded the angel, "and it is this that awes thy soul? 
I answer, end is there none to the universe of God! Lo! 
also, there is no beginning." 

Man's restless research has looked into all these deep 
things; nor is this all. Every object in heaven and earth 
has been analyzed by his chemistry — the invisible air, the 
upper firmament, light, heat and electricity have yielded 
up to him a larger or smaller portion of their secrets; and 
when chemistry has failed, the far more subtle analysis of 
an induction that seems to have no limits to its capacity 
has pushed his researches into fields thought hitherto to 
be inaccessible, until we are ready to exclaim " the spirit 
of the Holy God is in this." 

But though man has done all this, there is one thing he 
has not done, nor will ever do — that spirit does not permit. 
He has never explored the secret of Life. He has sought 
diligently, by chemical action and reaction, by searching 
and purifying fires, by microscopic dissection, but has 
sought in vain, to find the ultimate germ of that myste- 
rious force — vitality. Not only a true and reverent science 
has sought it, but "science falsely so-called" has coveted 
this great secret, not that it might shed more light upon 
the truth of Qod, but that it might itself excite this force, 



22 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

and so eliminate God from his universe and dispense with 
a creator. With this view, ungodly men have toiled 
patiently, with eager desire and with infernal aid, to un- 
ravel this mystery. As well might pigmies lift a moun- 
tain from the sea! Door after door they have opened, veil 
after veil they have raised; but still that awful mystery 
abides in the "Holy of Holies 1 ' — the bosom of God. Let 
them exhaust their efforts, let them test to the utmost the 
ultimate molecules of gases, and vapors, and spirits, and 
subtle essences, — they cannot analyze the breath of God! 

It is not only modern science, whether true or "falsely 
so-called," that has longed for the solution of this myste- 
rious life, and of the still more mysterious death by which 
it is invariably followed. The great philosophers of all 
antiquity — notably those of Athens — whose cultivated in- 
tellects sowed their firmaments with great lights that still 
sparkle down the centuries even to our own time — ex- 
pended all their powers in anxious though futile efforts to 
solve this great mystery. If, then, modern science; if the 
wisdom of the mighty dead of the past; if the traditions 
of buried empires, around whose veiy tombs still lingers 
after the lapse of millenniums a halo of intellectual light, 
can give us no aid — whither shall we turn for help? Shall 
we turn to the atheist, and let him answer for us that there 
is no -God; that we are the victims of some blind fate, and 
that after a few more years we shall go down into the grave 
to "lie in cold obstruction and to rot," and that we shall 
then be no more at all? Shall we go to the eclectic phi- 
losopher, and let him answer for us that nothing exists; 
that we are dreams; that all things else are dreams, and 
that our future, whatever else it may be, will only be a 
dream of dreams? Shall we go to the materialist, and 
learn from him, as well as his jargon will permit, that we 



LIFE ANt> DEATii. 23 

&re not dreams at all, but mere lumps of matter, molded 
Into their present shapes by a concourse of attractions, re- 
pulsions and other forces; and that by a change in the re- 
lations and dependencies of the different parts of these 
lumps of matter, they will some day be infinitely sub- 
divided again, and that throughout endless ages we will 
be diversifying with our scattered molecules, clouds and 
vapors, and worlds and suns? Alas ! there is no food for 
the hungry, no drink for the thirsty, no rest for the weary 
here. 

Is there, then, no solution of the question? Are we in- 
deed involved in hopeless doubt and gloom? Has this 
long wail of human woe gone up for six thousand years, 
only to be lost in space, or met by the heartless echoes of 
preceding cries of anguish ? Are we indeed the helpless 
occupants of a sad and ruined world, cast off by some 
blind fate, and doomed to wander aimlessly and without a 
destiny in the abysses of a boundless space? Oh ! if this 
be so, what dismay, what horror of great darkness should 
possess our souls ! Well may we shudder at the hideous 
"science, falsely so-called," which, even at this day, would 
invite us to eat and drink with the vain philosophy of the 
Epicurean* or to spin out our days with the indifference 
of the stoic ; which would consign us to such frigid thoughts, 
such outer darkness* Let us turn then from the cold and 
cheerless regions we have been exploring and enter into 
another sphere; into an atmosphere all the more bright 
and glowing, by reason of the contrasted gloom. Let us 
lift up our hearts in praise and adoration to the great Cre- 
ator of heaven and earth, and bless his holy name that he 
has revealed himself to us by his sacred Word. 

Now mark. That Word contains, as we have seen, the 
only light we have on these great questions. If it be not 



24 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

true, we are in midnight darkness still. But surely there 
is some light there, whether it be more or less, and it is all 
we have. How eagerly, then, should we search it! Think 
what an inestimable treasure it would have been to Soc- 
rates and Plato, to Cato and Cicero, as it has been to so 
many of like spirit with them — to Newton, to Johnston, to 
Brewster, to Maury, and to many ten thousands of like 
mind. How those old philosophers would have bathed 
their very souls with ecstacy in its glorious light ! And 
shall we do less? There, and there alone will we find the 
answers to these great questions that men are continually 
asking as to their origin, their present state and their fu- 
ture destiny. 

It's first utterance is — u In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth" (Gen. i, 1). In due time he filled 
the earth with beauty. Grasses, and trees, and flowers, and 
fruits, in unending profusion, covered the earth and satis- 
fied with endless adaptations all living things. Animals, 
and creeping things, and fowls of the air, sprang from the 
creative word with amazing prodigality. Earth, with all 
its teeming millions, was a scene of joy. The blessed sun- 
light, and the soft rays of the moon, gilded the day and 
silvered the night with inexpressible glory, and the stars 
looked down with sympathy, on a peace and beauty ri- 
valling their own. The fragrance and melody of spring, 
the maturer graces of summer, pregnant with promised 
fruit, autumn's abundant harvests, and winter's garnered 
comforts, each filled its special part in the circle of per- 
petual delights. Over this scene God's spirit brooded, and 
all created things rejoiced in his smile. 

But there yet remained one crowning act. A higher ex- 
ercise of the creative will was needed to complete the work. 
This Paradise was without a head. Among all the living 



LIFE AND DEATH. 25 

things peopling the earth, there was not one capable of 
government — not one knowing his Creator, and capable of 
returning conscious love and gratitude for the gift of life, 
with all its attendant happiness. And so, in the councils 
of the Triune God, it was said: "Let us make man — in 
our own image, after our likeness" (Gen. i, 26). "And the 
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground" (Gen. 
", 7). 

Now, when the body of man was thus moulded by the 
plastic hand of his Creator into that form of wonderful 
beauty, it would soon have fallen into decay and returned 
to dust again, if nothing more had been done. The ele- 
ments of which it was composed would soon have sepa- 
rated under that balmy sky, beneath which it was reposing 
in unconscious symmetry and grace. It would only have 
presented for a little while before its decay that sweet pa- 
thetic appearance which the poet describes as seen by him 

" * Who hath lent him o'er the dead, 

'Ere the first day of death hath fled, 

****** 

And marked the mild angelic air, 

The rapture of repose that's there, 

Before decay's effacing fingers 

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers." 

But man was not doomed thus to decay. God "breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living 
soul" (Gen. ii, 7). "So God created man in his own image; 
in the image of God created he him; male and female cre- 
ated he them " (Gen. i, 27). When God thus breathed 
into that lifeless body the "breath of life" (which was the 
breath of God) man became a "living soul," composed of 
body and spirit linked in immortal union. And in the 
immortal union of the two, there was the image and like- 
2 



26 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

ness of God — not in the spirit alone, but in the body and 
spirit united in immortality of life — a likeness disclosed 
to us when God was manifested in the face of our Saviour 
Christ, who was the express image of His person (Heb. i, 
3). 

And now the work of creation was done, and God pro- 
nounced all that he had made " very good." In answer 
to the Divine approval " the morning stars sang together, 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy " (Job xxxiii, 7). One 
universal jubilee from the earth and from all living things 
rose like sweet music on the air, and announced the com- 
pletion of another world perfect in its maker's eyes. Man, 
the child of heaven, sat in heavenly bowers and fed day 
by day on heavenly fruits. Fullness without satiety, joy 
without weariness, hope without fear, expectation without 
disappointment, sweet repose, health, peace and perfect 
innocence, all blended their manifold influences in his body, 
mind and soul; and gave him a foretaste of the still better 
things to be revealed hereafter. Angelic ministries watched 
over him, and beneath the smile of the common Father in 
Heavenj shed odors of immortal origin around his couch 
and about his path. Messages, borne more swiftly than 
electric speed, by angel's wings from heaven to earth and 
from earth to heaven, passed and repassed, charged with 
sympathy and protection on the one hand, and fidelity and 
gratitude on the other. Oh ! sweet and blessed scene ! Oh ! 
lost Paradise of our race, how our hearts ache and yearn 
as we recall thy joys! Even we, who have never tasted 
the fruits of Eden, yet feel in our heart of heart that the 
princely heritage was once our own, and that still its po- 
sessions are congenial to us. We may sometimes content 
ourselves with the coarse raiment and unsavory fare of the 
wilderness ; but it is only to mourn in our hours of thought, 



LIFE AND DEATH. 27 

with intense longing, with insatiable desire for the better 
things to which we were born. 

Man, then, at his creation was immortal, but his immor- 
tality, like that of other creatures of God, was con- 
ditional. God's immortality alone is absolute. The con- 
dition of man's immortality in body and soul was the 
continual influx of the quickening spirit — which could be 
prevented by himself alone. Its interruption would be 
death. Sin alone, violation of the will of God alone could 
produce that death; and that inevitably would do so, be- 
cause it would produce alienation from God, who not only 
is the bestower of life, but who only "hath life in himself" 
(John v, 26), who only is "the Life" (Ibid, xiv, 16). In 
short, the condition was that he who should be "alienated 
from the life of God" (Eph. iv, 18) by resisting or neglecting 
or failing to do His will would forfeit his immortality. If 
man sinned, he would die, body and soul (though his body 
might not be immediately dissolved), the moment that he 
sinned. He would not merely incur the penalty of a 
future death, but at the instant that he sinned, the sin 
would be his executioner — he would die then and there. 
"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" 
(Gen. ii, 17). He would be dead while he lived (1 Tim. 
v, 6), and all his descendants would be but the dead heirs 
of a dead father. 

Thus endowed, and thus warned, man, the prince im- 
perial of this beautiful world, moved through Eden, its 
acknowledged head. The clear sweet air, the rolling land- 
scape, the streams, the rocks, the trees, the flowers and 
fruits, the animals, the birds, the clouds, the sky, the fir- 
mament at night — all filled him with delight, and bore up 
his thoughts in joy and thanksgiving to God, the gracious 
giver of them all. Oh! that that universal jubilee were 



28 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

still ringing in our ears ! Oh ! that the course of time had 
not been changed, and that we were still part of many 
blessed generations, perpetuating that eternal anthem ! 
Alas! for us, this was not to be! We are the heirs of a 
forfeited immortality. 

Though invested by his Creator with imperial dominion, 
possessed of complete happiness, and with capacities for 
increasing and eternal felicity, man was not content. In- 
stead of the gradual increase of knowledge and power 
ordained for him, he coveted its immediate possession. 
His rebellious heart was stimulated by the fraudulent sug- 
gestions of a being more rebellious and more subtle than 
himself, and instead of submitting to the will of his Maker, 
he chose to exert his own in things forbidden. Disobedi- 
ence to the God in whom was his life severed him from 
that life. Alienation from life brought in death, and all 
nature shuddered with conscious ruin. "All the founda- 
tions of the earth" slipped u out of coarse" (Ps. lxxxii, 5). 
Then, instead of an universal jubilee, there arose one uni- 
versal discord. Instead of flowers and fruits, the earth 
produced thorns and thistles and noxious plants. Instead 
of peace, the blood of the innocent reddened the rivers 
and the seas, and cried out to God from the ground. And 
so man, the wisest and best beloved of all the creatures of 
the Father, insanely exchanged innocence for guilt, im- 
mortal life for death, and the paradise of his birth for a 
howling wilderness. 

But if he continued, and his descendants do now con- 
tinue, though dead, to move about in this same world with 
no apparent change, what was this death ? It is important 
that we should carefully note the precise answer of Scrip- 
ture to this question, because, from our habit of applying 
the word death almost exclusively to that dissolution of 



LIFE AND DEATH. 29 

the body which separates it from the spirit, we may miss 
the great truths designed to be conveyed to us. Geology 
seems to teach us that death, in the mere sense of disso- 
lution of the flesh, had taken place in beasts many ages 
before man's creation, and therefore altogether independ- 
ently of his sins. Beasts were not made immortal, and 
therefore died naturally, and in a manner not necessarily 
involving any evil. Man died unnaturally, and doubtless 
his death — prince and governor as he was — involved evil 
to all his subjects. The question as to the death of beasts — 
viz, the mere dissolution of the flesh — is a very different 
question from that as to the death of man. To the question 
as to the death of man, we have emphatic answers in 
Scripture. 

The many texts which inform us that alienation from 
God — walking in trespasses and sins, spiritual ignorance 
through neglect, unbelief, living in pleasure, &c, &c, are 
death — are all summed up in that clear and well-defined 
utterance of the Spirit: "To be carnally-minded is death, 
but to be spiritually-minded is life and peace" (Rom. viii, 
6). We learn from this and the texts alluded to, that life 
and death, in the Scripture sense of the words, are condi- 
tions of the mind or soul, producing happiness or misery ; and 
the reason why this state is death, is given — "Because the 
carnal mind is enmity against God" (Ibid 7), who is the 
fountain of life and happiness. Alienated from Him, we 
die, body and soul, and this alienation and consequent 
death must necessarily be complete the instant that we 
sin. We are then "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. i> 
1). We are not under sentence of death to be executed at 
some future period, but dead then, on the instant — so that 
our "eternal death" (whatever that may be, for it is not a 
Scripture phrase) has already commenced, even while we 



30 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

are — what in common language we call — alive. The con- 
sequences of this death are that we have lost our "likeness " 
to God, lost our unity of soul and body in immortality of 
life — a likeness and unity that can never be restored till 
the "new heavens and the new earth" shall appear as the 
fit receptables for new bodies restored through Christ to 
immortal union with redeemed souls. And so, when " our 
appointed time" comes, "then shall the dust return to the 
dust as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave 
it" (Eccle. xii, 7). 

Do we think that we have no part in this great fall except 
to suffer from it, and blame our first parents that they 
have bestowed on us by their sin a corrupt nature, fancy- 
ing that if we had been in their place we would not have 
fallen? If such a thought has entered our minds, let us 
search our hearts. The key-note of the universal harmony 
of the first paradise was conformity to the unerring, loving 
will of our Father in heaven. Do we possess that key- 
note? Or is it either wanting, or, at the best, "like sweet 
bells jangled, out of tune and harsh?" Do we submit to 
what we suppose to be that will, or do we resist it? Do 
we keep our minds and hearts pure, our hands clean, and 
use this world as not abusing it? If, as we think, God 
permits bereavement, the loss of wife or child ; if adversity 
befall us ; if we are embarrassed in our business ; if our 
fortunes are broken at a blow ; if we are in want, even in 
want of necessaries, — do we humbly submit to what we 
suppose the will of God in these dispensations, and cast 
all our care on Him ? Do we not rather submit to it be- 
cause we cannot help it? Or else daily resist it, and mur- 
mur and cry against it, and weary heaven and earth with 
our complaints ? Ah ! we want God's will to be done, if 
it conforms to our own. In truth, we do not want His will 



LIFE AND DEATH. 31 

to be done at all — we want our own wills to be done. It 
is vain for us to complain of our first parents, and to say- 
that if we had been placed in their circumstances we 
would never have forfeited our glorious heritage. Such 
thoughts are deep delusions and deceptions of our hearts. 
We are, of our own wills, partakers of their sin every day 
and hour, in cases where, if we would, we could do otherwise. 
So then, "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of 
God" (Rom. iii, 23). "There is none righteous, no, not 
one. There is none that understandeth, there is none 
that seeketh after God" (Ibid 10-11). We have "all gone 
out of the way," all "together become unprofitable; there 
is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Ibid 12). 

It will appear in the sequel that the fault of this de- 
parture was wholly our own, and that God, after our crea- 
tion, did all that omnipotent wisdom and love could do to 
prevent it. For the present it is assumed. We hope also 
to be able to show that the creation of a being sure to fall, 
can be justified on sound principles, which can be easily 
understood ; and that those principles agree with Scripture. 



32 THE DEATH OF DEATH, 



CHAPTER III. 

LIFE RENEWED — DEATH CONFIRMED. 

ALL then have fallen, not only in Adam's fall, but each 
by his own fault; and each of us is now making his brief 
pilgrimage and probation through that wilderness which 
received our first parents when the gates of Eden closed 
behind them for sins similar to our own. The solemn 
question, the universal question, comes back to us with 
new force. When we have passed the wilderness, what 
then? What is reserved for us in that great future, stretch- 
ing so relentlessly before us? "If a man die, shall he live 
again?" (Job xiv, 14). It cannot be long before these 
questions will come home to every son of man with awful 
solemnity. By all of us they must be met and answered 
soon; by some of us very soon. These questions, even 
more than that in regard to the origin of life, have baffled 
all human wisdom. No seer has ever been found capable 
of grappling with such problems. Their solution must 
come down from God out of heaven. Like weary trav- 
elers, surrounded by night and the road lost, we must 
sink down into indifference or despair, unless we will open 
our ears and hear the gracious voice coming down from 
above, and revealing to us One who is "the way, the truth 
and the life " (John xiv, 6) — the only true way by which 
we can ever see life renewed in us. All we who are weary, 
all we who are sorrowing, all we who are in doubt or diffi- 
culty, all we who fear or would know the future, may re- 
joice with joy, unspeakable and full of glory, that the same 



LIFE RENEWED — DEATH CONFIRMED. 33 

heavenly voice declares to us that "as in Adam all die, so 
in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor. xv, 22). 

Yes, heaven and earth may well rejoice at the life-giving 
word ; but before taking in its full measure of comfort it 
becomes us to enquire on what terms we are to be made 
alive — whether the promise is absolute or conditional. 

As our sins, the result of our non-conformity to the will 
of God, have produced alienation from Him, and conse- 
quent death and misery, so a restoration to life and happi- 
ness can come alone from a new conformity to that will. 
Accordingly, the Apostle prays us " in Christ's stead " to 
be "reconciled to God" (fi Cor. v, 20). But how is that 
reconciliation to be effected ? Our consciences convict us 
of having offended God in the past; and we well know, 
that weak and corrupt as we are, we shall offend him again 
in the future. The sinful past is irrevocable, the sinful 
future is certain. What then is to be done ? For surely, 
unless some provision is made beyond our own power or 
strength to effect that reconciliation, it can never be 
effected. Happily for us just such a provision has been 
made. 

We read that "while we were yet without strength, in due 
time, Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom. v, 6); that "God 
commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet 
sinners, Christ died for us" (Ibid 8); that "this is a faith- 
ful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ 
came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim. i, 15). Yes, 
verily, it is worthy of all acceptation, and by all, for we are 
also told that "neither is there salvation in any other, for 
there is none other name given under heaven, among men, 
whereby we must be saved" (Acts iv, 12). 

Is it asked how the death of Christ, though Son of Man 
and Son of God ? can enure to our benefit; how the blood 



34 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

of the innocent can wash the guilty clean ? We cannot 
answer. We learn from St. Paul (Eph. i. 9-11) and from 
other texts that it is a great mystery ; and from St. Peter 
that it is one which "the angels desire to look into" (1 
Peter i, 12). We cannot probe it with " hows " and " whys." 
It is enough for us to reap its benefits ; it is enough for. us 
to know that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from 
all sin" (1 John i, 7); that " God was in Christ reconciling 
the world unto himself" (2 Cor. v, 19), and that God 
" made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we 
might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (Ibid 
21). 

Does the death of Christ save us then, as matter of 
course? No; we must co-operate in the matter; we must 
"work out our own salvation with fear and trembling" 
(Phil, ii, 12); we must be "workers together with him" 
(2 Cor. vi, 1). His death is potential to save us, but in 
order to avail ourselves of it, we must desire to be saved 
by it, and fulfill the terms on which it enures to our benefit. 
We must strive to follow the example of obedience to Qod, 
which he set while on earth ; we must strive to walk in 
the path once trod through fiery trials and temptations by 

u * * * * * those blessed feet, 
Which (eighteen) hundred years ago were nail'd 
For our advantage on the bitter cross." 

A boat is capable of saving a ship-wrecked mariner, but 
in order that it may do so, he must exert himself to get 
into it. So the ark of our salvation must be reached by. 
our own efforts. God and man must concur in the great 
work — God to provide the means of salvation, and we to 
endeavor, by his help, to subdue our stubborn wills, our 
unholy desires and affections, our worldly lusts- and sq 



LIFE RENEWED — t)EATfi CONFIRMED. 35 

seek to avail ourselves of those means. As soon as we are 
prepared to do this, and so to accept the salvation that is 
by Christ, the lost key-note of the universal harmony is 
restored to our souls, and we again become "heirs of God, 
and joint heirs with Christ " (Rom. viii, 17). 

To attain this blessedness we need only try earnestly to 
do God's will. We will never succeed fully in this world. 
No Christian has ever lived; none is now living; none will 
ever live, who has not sinned; who does not sin now daily 
and hourly ; who will not sin hereafter, oftentimes grossly. 
St. John and St. Paul and all the inspired writers set this 
before us vividly and constantly. They do not apply it to 
past but to present sins. One of them says: "We are all 
as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy 
rags" (Isaiah lxiv, 6). Another says: "If we say that we 
have no sin " (even the best — even St. John) " we deceive our- 
selves, and the truth is not in us " (1 John i, 8). Another 
says he finds a law in his members (to which he yields) 
which wars against the law of his mind — the thing " I 
would, that do I not, but what I hate, that do I; the good 
that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, 
that I do. Oh ! wretched man that I am, who shall de- 
liver me from the body of this death" (Rom. vii, 15-25). 
Now these men were the chiefs of all the Christians, the 
very elect of God, and they are speaking of themselves as 
the representatives of all Christians. It is not therefore a 
question of our sins, past, present, or to come — it is a ques- 
tion of our intent, of our will and purpose. Even human 
law holds a man a criminal or a good citizen, not with re- 
ference to the fact of crime, but to his intent. If, then, we 
can truthfully say with Paul, "So, then, with the mind, I 
myself serve the law of God," then we may rejoice to believe 
that we are Christians, and have passed from death unto life, 



36 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

even though we are obliged to mourn with him, that we 
serve "with the flesh the law of sin" (Ibid), for then, im- 
mediately, life, immortal life, is restored to our souls. 

But, when our "appointed time" comes, and the spirit 
returns to God who gave it, we must leave our ruined 
bodies behind. Christ redeems the soul, but not the fallen 
body. " If (even if) Christ be in you, the body is dead be- 
cause of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness " 
(Rom. viii, 10). The bodies of all die, therefore, because of 
sin, and return to their dust, but the spirits of all return to 
God who gave them — those who are in Christ being in life, 
and those who are not in him being dead in "trespasses and 
sins," just in the same sense, and from the same cause, that 
they were dead before their bodies returned to the dust. 

But, when the spirits of all have thus returned to the God 
who gave them, what is their state? We have already seen 
that they are in a state of life or death, accordingly as they 
have accepted the redemption of Christ or not; but are 
they floating about like invisible mists in the other world, 
or are they in some definite place, and are they conscious 
or not? In the spiritual world there are several places or 
departments. The alternate phrase of the apostles' creed 
speaks of the "place of departed spirits." This place is 
spoken of in the Scriptures, in the original, as Hades, and 
means the invisible place of the dead, or a place beneath. 
It is unfortunate that in our version of the Scriptures it 
is often translated Hell, which conveys a false idea of it to 
our minds. It is a place beneath, because, whatever it 
may be in reference to the earth, it is lower than the high- 
est heavens, of which it is said " David is not yet ascended 
into the heavens" (Acts ii, 34), and to which St. Paul 
ascended in that wonderful vision, and heard "unspeaka- 
ble words which it is not lawful for a man to utter "; and 



LIFE RENEWED — DEATH CONFIRMED. 37 

when the glory and "abundance of the revelations " made 
to him were so bewildering, that to prevent his being 
"exalted above measure," God had to send him a "thorn 
in his flesh*" He tells us that whether "in the body" or 
"out of the body," he could not tell, he was "caught up 
to the third heaven," where he saw these wondrous things 
(see 2 Cor. xii, 1-10). This means probably the highest 
heavens, where God pre-eminently displays His glory; but 
wherever it was, it was a different place from that visited 
by the Divine Redeemer when he "went and preached 
to the spirits in prison " (1 Pet. iii, 19). This was proba- 
bly the place of those not in Christ, and was one depart- 
ment of this Hades, or " place of departed spirits," while 
the other is the place of those in Christ; for he told the 
dying thief, "verily I say unto thee this day shalt thou 
be with me in Paradise " (Luke xxiii, 43). In this place 
of departed spirits, the dead of all the past await the 
"change," to come on the morning of the resurrection. 

But while thus waiting, are they conscious of their state? 
Why should they not be ? We have seen that death, in the 
Scripture sense, is a condition of the soul, by which, 
through sin, it is put out of harmony with God, and that 
it had two consequences — one of them the utter destruc- 
tion of the body, at its "appointed time" — and the other, 
the immediate misery of the soul and its "return to God" 
at the same "appointed time." But the soul is the seat 
of consciousness, and not the body; so that it would seem 
that the destruction of the latter would not involve a loss 
of consciousness. The wicked were "dead in trespasses 
and sins" before their bodies returned to the dust — that is, 
while they were, what we call, alive, but yet they were 
conscious then. Why should they not be so now, when 
(their spirits being with God) they are alive in a far higher 



38 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

sense ? They are so, and with all the exquisite sensibility 
of this intenser life, they have gone down into the u place 
of departed spirits," unrelieved, as hitherto, by the amuse- 
ments, and pleasures, and distractions of this life, with all 
that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the 
eye, and the pride of life — its riches, its honors, its ambi- 
tions, its hopes — all passed away forever, they stand face 
to face with a gracious God — a compassionate Father — a 
loving Saviour — a yearning Spirit, whose laws they have 
violated, whose proffered salvation they have rejected or 
neglected, whose gentle and persuasive influences they 
have received in vain; and so there settles down upon 
their ruined souls the misery of creatures alienated from 
their God — conscious guilt, remorse for the past, and sad 
forebodings for the future — tortures which have no present 
mitigation, even from that 

u Bless'd tear of soul-felt penitence, 
In whose benign redeeming flow, 
Is felt the first, the only sense 

Of guiltless joy that guilt can know." 

We turn now from this sad scene to soothe our spirits 
by the contemplation of the "dead in Christ." Every 
reason that goes to show that the wicked continue in a 
conscious state of suffering after the dissolution of the 
body, gives increased conviction that the blessed dead 
continue then in a conscious state of bliss, awaiting the 
"day of the Lord." In addition we have the warrant of 
Scripture for this conviction ; for we are there told that 
Moses and Elias appeared at the transfiguration, " talking 
with Jesus " (Mark ix, 4; Matt, xvii, 3), and spake to him 
"of His decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusa- 
lem ".(Luke ix, 31). We are also exhorted by our blessed 
Lord to use our money for the benefit of others, so that 



LIFE RENEWED — DEATH CONFIRMED. 39 

when we depart hence, the friends we have so made, and 
who have preceded us, may welcome us to Paradise, " and 
I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon 
of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may receive 
you into everlasting habitations" (Luke xvi, 9). St. John 
saw in vision beneath the altar (long before the resurrec- 
tion) the "souls of them that were slain for the word of 
God and for the testimony which they held; and they 
cried with a loud voice and said, l How long, Lord^ 
holy and true, dost Thou not avenge our blood on them 
that dwell on the earth?' And white robes were given 
unto every one of them ; and it was said unto them that 
they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow- 
servants also, and their brethren that should be killed as 
they were, should be fulfilled" (Rev. vii, 10-11). Let this 
be figuratively expressed, still it conveys the idea of con- 
scious rest (oh blessed word !) for those who "sleep in Je- 
sus." That the blessed dead are "asleep" or "at rest," 
does not, therefore, impair the force of these comforting 
convictions. It is doubtless an incomplete state until at the 
resurrection they are invested with their "glorified bodies "; 
but it is a state of sweet, conscious rest. It appears, then, 
that if we depart "in Christ," we shall immediately "see 
Him as He is," in the "Paradise of God," and rest in 
peaceful, conscious expectation of our perfection at the res- 
urrection, by investiture with bodies "fashioned like unto 
His glorious body" (Phil, iii, 21). No gloom of the grave 
awaits God's ransomed ones. Death has come, and found 
nothing in them for his blazing sword. He will, indeed, 
win a temporary triumph over their frail bodies, but on 
the beautiful garments in which their souls are arrayed by 
Him who " bore their sins in His own body on the tree," 
the smell even of His fiery breath shall not be found. 



40 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

And now, though Paradise has been lost, it is nothing to 
a "Paradise regained.'* The bitter sorrow, the long delay, 
will enhance an hundred fold the glorious restoration of 
eternal joy. And that joy is ours — is ours, oh weary, strug- 
gling, sorrowing fellow-mortals, if we will only strive for 
it; if we will only regain, by accepting Christ as our 
Saviour, that virgin grace which made its charm, honest, 
earnest submission to the will of God. When we shall 
have bowed our stubborn wills, to rest our all on "Jesus 
Christ, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks 
foolishness" (1 Cor. i, 23), we shall have fulfilled all the 
law, because his merit of obedience will enure to our 
benefit. 

And then heaven is ours. Come what will to us in this 
world, we shall re-enter when we depart hence on immor- 
tal life. We shall join the great "assembly and church of 
the first-born which are written in heaven" (Heb. xii, 23)- 
We shall be received with joy and gladness by the loved 
ones who have gone before, now more loving and beautiful 
than ever, on the everlasting hills of Zion, and with them 
swell the sweet anthems of the restored Paradise of God. 
And then some day the soft, sweet resurrection signal (soft 
and sweet in that pure air) shall echo through those happy 
hills, and "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven 
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the 
trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then 
we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together 
with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and 
so shall we ever be with the Lord" (2 Thess. iv, 16-17). In 
that glorious fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, St. 
Paul, glowing with unwonted eloquence, describes the 
resurrection with rapt enthusiasm. He tells us that there 
is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. We have 



LIFE RENEWED — DEATH CONFIRMED. 41 

already seen that the natural body is destroyed utterly 
"because of sin"; but St. Paul tells us that out of it — 
as a flower out of an ugly seed, and bearing the same re- 
lationship to it — shall spring a spiritual body. This seed 
sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption ; sown in 
dishonor, it shall be raised in glory; sown*in weakness, it 
shall be raised in power; sown a natural body, it shall be 
raised a spiritual body. In this light we can see the re- 
deemed standing before the bar of God, radiant in beauty, 
strength and immortality, and clothed with the robes of 
Christ's perfect righteousness. God's searching eye sees no 
spot upon them ; and being justified by faith, their immor- 
tality in body and soul restored, they enter into the many 
mansions of their Father's House in the Highest Heavens, 
with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads — angels 
and archangels, and all the company of heaven, uniting 
in their glad welcome home, to their unending rest. 

But what of the lost? We have seen them conducted 
by their sins to their own place in Hades. We have seen 
them suffering there, from remorse of conscience, from 
utter desolation and loneliness, as aliens from their Father 
in heaven — and suffering these things with a keenness and 
bitterness which the distractions of earth prevented while 
they were here, but which the realities of the spiritual 
world develop now with terrible energy. 

But how is God affected by their sufferings? Does He 
sternly or coldly see them writhing there? Does His holy 
eye blaze through and through their naked souls, increas- 
ing their pangs and extinguishing all hope of their abate- 
ment by any means in heaven or earth that Omnipotence 
can employ? Is the tender, pitying glance of Him who 
was on earth the God of love, turned for them into fiery 
flames of consuming vengeance — vengeance inexorable 



42 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

and complete? Is He no longer the God of love for a por- 
tion of His miserable creatures, but the God of war and 
wrath for them? Did they indeed read in lurid flames 
over the brazen gates of the dread abyss before they shut 
with horrid clang behind their shuddering souls: "Leave 
hope behind, who enter here?" Have the faculties of 
their souls been utterly destroyed by sin, so that they them- 
selves are new creatures of her hellish hand ; or has hope — 
that last, most indestructible of them all — alone closed her 
weary eye, and left but her tomb in hearts and minds from 
which she was once inseparable? 

Or, on the contrary, does the Spirit of God still brood 
over this dismal scene ? Does redeeming love still yearn 
for the lost soul? Does the wail of the Divine Compassion, 
infinite and indestructible, still mourn, even if afar off, 
over that sorrowful fate? Is there still any hope that 
once again, "in the fullness of times," after whatever un- 
counted period, through the "tribulation and anguish " in- 
flicted by sin, there may be produced in the damned a 
desire to cease from sinning? Is there still any hope that 
the punishment of the future state is not vindictive but 
reformatory ? Is there still any hope that infinite wisdom, 
by infinite redeeming love, will yet bring order out of con- 
fusion, and restore to harmony and peace and joy the en- 
tire universe it has made ? 

It is the object of the following chapters to answer these 
solemn questions, and, by God's help, to show that the 
true consummation of the Divine plan in the sacrifice of 
Christ, is the ultimate restoration of peace "in heaven 
and in earth, and under the earth." This golden key, if 
it can be found, will unlock the gloomy, rust-eaten door, 
behind which is hidden the precious secret of the "origin 
of evil." Once inside, we may subject it to analysis, and 



LIFE RENEWED— DEATH CONFIRMED. 43 

we may find that in the "alchemy of heaven" inevitable 
evil has been converted into an eternal blessing, unattain- 
able in any other way, to every intelligent creature in God's 
entire universe ? 

A brief review of this and the preceding chapter may 
be useful. 

1st. We have seen that life and death cannot be ex- 
plained by man, but are revealed by God alone. 

2d. That life is the "breath of God," by which man was 
made immortal, body and soul, an immortality conferring 
happiness, but conditioned on conformity to the will of God. 

3d. That man violated the condition, and by sin incurred 
the forfeiture — dying, body and soul — the instant that he 
sinned; and that this death is a condition of the mind or 
soul, accompanied by its immediate misery and the future 
ruin of the body. 

4th. That though thus "dead while he lives," his body 
will return to the dust only at an "appointed time" there- 
after; and that his soul does not consciously suffer complete 
misery till then, by reason of the distractions of the 
world, and his present incapacity to appreciate the unseen 
realities of the spiritual world ; by reason of the superior 
influence over the mind of the things that are seen, though 
temporal, as compared with the things that are unseen, 
though eternal. 

5th. That dissolution of the body and death of the soul 
are due to alienation from the life of God, in whom alone 
we are alive. 

6th. That provision is made by the death of Christ, for 
restoration to the life of God, which carries with it, for all 
who accept it before the dissolution of the body, the re- 
newal of the soul's happiness, and its conscious rest in 
Christ in the place of departed spirits, after that dissolu- 
tion has taken place. 



44 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

7th. That the old body being hopelessly dead "because 
of sin," and soul and body united in immortality, being 
necessary for one in the "image of God," a new body will 
rise at the resurrection from the old, as a flower from the 
germ, to be united to the soul in indissoluble union? 
both free from danger of another fall by likeness to 
Christ and heirship with him in glory. 

8th. That those who do not accept the provision made 
for them in Christ before the dissolution of the body, have 
u no part in him" in this world, and go into the "place of 
departed spirits," still dead in "trespasses and sins" — just 
as they were here and with the same conscious suffering, 
but intensified by a realization of their position not possi- 
ble while they were on earth. 

What then? 



CONDITION OF THE LOST — VARIOUS THEORIES. 45 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE VARIOUS THEORIES AS TO THE CONDITION OF THE LOST. 

THE calculations of the learned German statisticians — 
Drs. Behm and Wagner — place the present population 
of the earth at between fourteen and fifteen hundred mil- 
lions of souls. It would be a vain attempt to ascertain 
how many have lived on the earth since the creation of 
man. Any estimate that could be made would place their 
number at many thousands of millions — figures that con- 
vey no appreciable meaning to our minds, except that of 
an inconceivable multitude. Now the view accepted by a 
large section of the multiform Christian creeds is, that the 
great majority of these multitudes — at least of the adults — 
are hopelessly lost. Surely, so fearful a statement must 
fill every unbiased mind with horror and dismay. Even 
the loss of one single soul, doomed to an endless and hope- 
less torture, inconceivable in degree as in duration — a 
doom of which one has said, "it is infinitely beyond the 
highest archangel's faculty to apprehend the thousandth 
part of the horror" — is appalling beyond description. 
When such a thought has once entered the mind in vital 
form, it cannot be at rest till it has inquired how such a 
calamity could have befallen any of our race, much more 
the largest number; and in our vague ideas of the sove- 
reignty of God, our first thought is that He must in some 
way be responsible for it; that He could, if He would, 
have prevented it. Against such a thought the mind, not 
less than the heart, will revolt sooner or later with unut- 



46 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

terable loathing, unless it is bound by the trammels of a 
traditional creed, paralyzed by some accepted dogma, or 
conscious of its impotence, is ready to resign all thought 
and accept whatever monstrous doctrine its masters and 
teachers may impose upon it. To this last sad condition 
the majority, even of intelligent men, seem willing to re- 
sign themselves; and a blind adherance to dogma, whether 
caused by this self-surrender, or by party spirit, has pro- 
duced and is still producing more desolation in the earth 
than all the excesses of radicalism are able or ever will 
be able to produce. But in every age of the world and of 
the church, there have been multitudes who could not be 
thus satisfied, and who either consciously or unconsciously 
have wrought out theories and systems for themselves, 
which have given them more or less satisfaction — each 
having a system, which, in his wisdom or his ignorance, 
appeared to him to conform more nearly to the truth of 
Scripture than those of others. Whatever follies may 
have been thus committed, it is better so than that they 
should have settled down into ignorance, indifference or 
submission to the ipsi dixit of a despotic spiritual autho- 
rity. The one at least gives evidence of life — the other is 
the silence of spiritual sleep or death. We need only 
notice the four theories that are accepted by considerable 
bodies of men; and even from these w r e exclude that sen- 
timental opinion which affirms that man deserves no suf- 
fering in the future world for what he did here, and that 
even if he did, God is too merciful to permit him so to 
suffer. We confine our attention to those who accept the 
words "eternal" or "everlasting" punishment as descrip- 
tive of the condition of the lost; but who interpret those 
words in different senses. Of these there are four classes: 



CONDITION OF THE LOST — VARIOUS THEORIES. 4? 

1st. Those who interpret those words as meaning endless 
and hopeless punishment. 

2d. Those who interpret them as meaning a punishment 
that either immediately annihilates, or else endures till it 
extinguishes the soul. 

3d. Those who interpret them as meaning a punishment 
that is xonian, or till the end of the &on, age, or dispensation . 

4th. Those who interpret them as meaning a punish- 
ment or suffering, indefinite as to its duration ; but who be- 
lieve also that it is one enduring as long as the sinful tem- 
per endures, and terminable in the future life as in this 
by repentance and restoration to God through Christ. 

First. Those who interpret the words as meaning endless and 
hopeless punishment (either as matter of dogma, or as matter 
of deliberate and intelligent opinion) constitute a large 
part of the Christian Church. But though at one as to the 
punishment, they are divided into antagonistic parties as 
to the subjects of it. They agree that none can escape the 
punishment save those only who accept Christ's salvation 
in this life; but there they diverge. One of them main- 
tains that those only are saved who from eternity were 
elected to salvation by God, and that the lost were equally 
elected from eternity to damnation by Him, in each case 
without any merit or demerit on the part of those thus 
disposed of, but by the will of God. Those by whom this 
strange extreme of doctrine is generally held, stand, and 
have always stood, as high for pure and undefiled religion 
as any body of Christians whatever — one of the many 
proofs we possess that mistake of doctrine may well har- 
monize with righteousness of life. The other maintains 
that no man is lost except by his own will; for that the 
offer of salvation is made to all, and all are free to accept 
or reject it as they themselves may elect. An incessant 



48 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

war has been waged between these two schools of opinion. 
Whole libraries have been poured out on either side, by 
men of wonderful ability and learning, with no progress to- 
wards the settlement of their differences. Now it is plain, 
that if the hopeless and unending punishment of man in the 
world to come, even for his own fault, raises in the mind 
anxious inquiry as to how this can consist with the holiness 
of God, the suggestion that it was deliberately purposed and 
planned by God in the beginning, and that he made these 
poor lost souls expressly for this dismal fate, adds unspeak- 
able difficulty to the inquiry, or rather renders the question 
entirely insoluble. For centuries the church has been deaf- 
ened by the din and clamor of a strife, hopeless of result, 
because both sides were reasoning all the time from false 
premises. At last there is a prospect that as soon as the 
advocates of the darker view shall calmly examine the 
new light thrown upon the subject, there will be a peace 
or at least a truce. It was reserved for a great living* 
thinker to bestow this light. As when a new land is 
sought, one searcher will find an adjacent island, another a 
promontory, another and- another some projecting head- 
land, till at last one shall explore the whole coast, explode 
their conjectures, correct their errors, and give a consistent 
map of the land — so this great discoverer has supplied us 
with a chart of new realms in moral science. This son of 
Anak has removed mountains of hoary errors and soph- 
isms, and made a demonstration that on this point seems 
to be complete. In his immortal work (Theodicy) Dr. 
Bledsoe has demonstrated, if anything is capable of de- 
monstration, that the idea of God dooming men, infants 
or adults to eternal perdition, without any reference to 

* Note.— All of this book but the last two or three chapters was written before 
his lamented death. 



CONDITION OF THE LOST — VARIOUS THEORIES. 49 

their deserts, and of his own mere will, is as false as it is 
unspeakably horrible, and is a caricature of the Deity be- 
cause utterly inconsistent with every principle of justice or 
mercy. Those who wish to see the argument in all its 
grand proportions, and to see the crashed and scattered 
bones of its great antagonist around it, will enjoy a great 
pleasure by referring to the book itself. 

Though relieved of this nightmare, as it seems to us, the 
question still remains — how are we to reconcile the endless 
and hopeless punishment of any of God's creatures with 
His holiness? 

For ages men have been crazed by thinking too con- 
stantly and unwisely on the great question of the origin of 
evil. They have blinded themselves by gazing too intently 
and with bad eyes into the darkness. "Great and good men, 
however, have from time to time, explored almost every 
principle on which the solution of the question depends. 
Strong intellectual lenses have concentrated the light upon 
them as with dark lanterns ; but, unfortunately, such lan- 
terns, though they could cast great avenues of light every- 
where over the dark waters, could only cast them in one 
direction at a time, because, elsewhere, surrounded b} r dog- 
matic shades and shadows. Great intervening darkness 
lay between these avenues. Some have built or fancied 
mysterious bridges across these chasms, and from them 
have mapped out the whole space; and have become angry 
with those who could not understand these maps that 
seemed so plain to them — while others have contented 
themselves with the light they saw, and faithfully believed 
that they would be as well content with the remaining 
space, if they could only see it. A great Pharos at last ap- 
pears erected on a rock, absorbing these avenues in one 
broad sheet of light radiating throughout its sphere, and 
3 



50 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

illuminating the dark and stormy waters around it. Un- 
fortunately it was not elevated sufficiently high to reach 
the whole horizon of the argument. 

With the great question of the origin of evil on the sup- 
position that any are doomed to hopeless and endless pun- 
ishment, Dr. Bledsoe grapples mightily, and endeavors to 
prove that moral evil is consistent with the holiness of God, 
even on that supposition. Having cleared away the diffi- 
culties interposed by the sophistry and dogmatic rigidity 
of his adversaries, he propounds his own theory. It is not 
possible to state that theory in this little essay in all its 
completeness, even if we were capable of doing so. The 
club of Hercules cannot be made to fit conveniently into 
a receptacle intended for a quarter staff. We must, there- 
fore, endeavor to present briefly its bare outlines, as we 
understand it, in our own words, though we are quite con- 
scious that. we may not thus do full justice to it, or inter- 
pret even these outlines fairly. We will try to do so. 

When God created man he felt towards him all those 
sentiments of affection, which we can only faintly typify 
by a father's love for his child. He desired earnestly that 
man should exhibit to him the love and obedience of a 
child, of which he was inconceivably worthy. Foreseeing 
that in his heedlessness and waywardness, this child would 
fall away from his Divine Father, he made in advance an 
ample provision to redeem his fall and restore him to his 
favor. He created man, this son of His, in His own like- 
ness, provided bountifully for him, employed all the agen- 
cies for his happiness and well-doing that boundless love 
could suggest and limitless power command, and laid on 
him only the obligation of obedience and gratitude. In 
spite of all this man fell from his allegiance, and added 
obstinate unbelief to his ingratitude by a refusal to accept 



CONDITION OF THE LOST — VARIOUS THEORIES. 51 

the provision made for his redemption. He thus incurred 
just punishment as the penalty of his sin. But, if indeed 
ineffable love yearned over the sinner, why did not om- 
nipotent power prevent his fall? Because even omnipotent 
power could not prevent it. What is omnipotence? Not 
the power to do everything — but only that which is true 
and right. God, for example, we may reverently and joy- 
fully say, cinnot work a contradiction; for the very nature 
of Him, who cannot lie, who is perfect and complete, judg- 
ing right, would forbid it. God cannot make two and two 
equal to five, or the part equal to the whole, for these things 
would be contradictions. We must bear this in mind when 
we consider man's case. God had made all beautiful and 
wonderful creatures on the earth without number, before 
man's creation; but among them all there was not one 
being endowed with a sense of moral responsibility, not 
one capable of returning conscious love and gratitude to 
its Maker. The law impressed upon the nature of all ex- 
isting things was, that after their creation they should con- 
tinue what they were, by no voluntary or co-operative 
agency of their own, but by the external power of God. 
The birds sang by an irresistible impulse, simply because 
they could not help it; and all other creatures played their 
parts by a similar necessity of their natures. 

But man, made in the image of God, after His likeness, 
must necessarily possess in some degree the Divine capaci- 
ties (the same in kind, though infinitely lower in degree), 
and among them the capacity of willing to do or to forbear 
to do, free from external control. If he did not possess 
this power, he would be in no moral respect different from 
the bird that sings because it must. If God, after man's 
creation, could have coerced his will, the coercion would 
have been an act of power contrary to the very nature of 



52 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

man, and its effect would have been either to annihilate 
him or to change him into a brute. But so long as man 
continues to be man, his love and willing obedience cannot 
be coerced, for this would be a contradiction — a thing im- 
possible with God. Of course the man may be forced by- 
stress of pain to do so and so, but then it is no longer an 
act of the will, or a willing act. And so man was to do or 
to forbear to do God's will, to love or to hate Him at his 
own mere will. God could persuade, entreat, allure him 
in all gracious ways, but could not coerce his love or 
compel a willing obedience, for these are contradictions in 
terms. The law of man's nature, then, the condition on 
which alone he could exist at all as man, was, from the ne- 
cessity of the case, the very reverse of that imposed upon 
all other creatures — viz : that he should continue what he 
was at his creation, the son of God, and as such heir of 
all things in earth and heaven, not simply by the external 
power of God, but by his own voluntary will and efforts, 
co-operating with the gracious aid of his Father in heaven. 
Even if there were no revelation on the subject, we our- 
selves are conscious that we are free to love or hate, to do 
or refuse to do without any control beyond our own wills. 
And he who was both God and man declares, not that we 
cannot have life, but that "ye will not come to me that ye 
may have life" (John v, 40). It thus appears that God is 
in no sense the author of sin and its consequent suffering, 
or responsible for its existence in any way on account of 
his failure to prevent man's fall. He does not impose 
punishment on the sinner, but the sinner brings punish- 
ment, or, to speak more correctly, suffering on himself by 
his sins, from the nature of the case. 

Thus far this argument seems to be entirely satisfactory. 
We are unable to see how any rational answer can be given 



CONDITION OF THE LOST — VARIOUS THEORIES. 53 

to it. But at this point Dr. Bledsoe diverges from the ad- 
vocates of a benigner creed. He alleges that if the sinner 
departs this life impenitent, the punishment is endless, not 
because such a penalty is merited by every sin, but because 
the culprit will continue to sin forever. He quotes the ar- 
gument of another against the proposition that each sin 
merits an eternal penalty, and comments thus: "This 
answer alone, though perhaps not the best that might be 
made, we deem amply sufficient. Indeed does not the po- 
sition that a man, a poor, weak, fallible creature, deserves 
an infinite punishment, an eternity of torments, for each 
evil thought and word, carry its own refutation along with 
it? and if not, what are we to think of the attribute of 
justice which demands an eternity of torment to inflict the 
infinite pangs due to a single sin? Is it a quality to in- 
spire the soul with a rational worship, or to fill it with a 
horror that casteth out love?" (Theodicy, p. 296). "We 
say, then, that eternal sufferings are deserved by the finally 
impenitent, not because every sinful act carries along with 
it an infinite guilt, nor because every sinner may be imag- 
ined to have committed an infinite number of sins, but 
because they will continue to sin forever. It will be con- 
ceded that if punishment be admissible at all, it is right 
and proper that so long as acts of rebellion are persisted 
in, the rewards of iniquity should attend them. It will 
be conceded that if the finally impenitent should continue 
to sin forever, then they forever deserve to reap the rewards 
of sin. But this is one part of the Scripture doctrine of 
future punishments that those who endure them will 
never cease to sin and rebel against the authority of God's 
law" (Ibid p. 303-4). "We do not suppose the soul of 
the guilty will continue to sin forever, because it will be 
consigned to the regions of the lost] but we suppose it will 



54 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

be consigned to the regions of the lost, because by its own 
repeated acts of transgression, it has made sure of its eter- 
nal continuance in sinning" (Ibid p. 305). Now to all the 
principles laid down in the foregoing extracts, we are 
bound to give our assent, for they seem like almost, if not 
quite all those laid down in the "Theodicy" to be abso- 
lutely unanswerable. But there is one fact (as w T e will call 
it) assumed or stated, and claimed to be in accordance 
with the "Scripture doctrine of future punishments," 
which does not seem to be sufficiently established — to wit: 
that the finally impenitent (he who dies in his sins) has 
himself "made sure of an eternal continuance in sinning." 
If this be not true, then it would seem that in accordance 
with the principles here laid down, another step must be 
taken in order to show " moral evil to be consistent with 
the holiness of God." If it be true, it must be admitted 
that Dr. Bledsoe has shown that as God could not pre- 
vent man, after he was once created, from sinning, he 
is not immediately responsible for the eternal punishment 
which results. But this appears only to remove the difficulty 
one step further; for the question still remains — why did He 
create any man, knowing that he would or could thus sin 
to his everlasting ruin, in spite of the use by God of all 
possible means to prevent him ? 

Dr. Bledsoe anticipates this objection. He says: "We 
have already said that the only real question is, not w 7 hy 
God permitted evil, but why he created beings capable of 
sinning. Such creatures are beyond all question the most 
noble specimens of his workmanship. St. Augustine has 
beautifully said that the horse which has gone astray is a 
more noble creature than a stone which has no power to 
go astray. In like manner we may say that a moral agent 
that is capable of knowing and loving and serving God 



CONDITION OF THE LOST — VAEIOUS THEORIES.' 55 

though its very nature implies its ability to do otherwise, 
is a more glorious creature than any being destitute of such 
a capacity. If God had created no such being, his work 
might have represented him 'as a house doth the builder,' 
but not * as a son doth his father.' If he had created no 
such beings, there would have been no eye in the universe 
except His own to admire and to love His works. Traces 
of His wisdom and goodness might have been seen here 
and there scattered over His works, provided any eye had 
been lighted up with intelligence to see them; but nowhere 
would His living and immortal image have been seen in 
the magnificent temple of the world. It will be conceded 
then that there is no difficulty in conceiving why God 
should have preferred a universe of His creatures, beaming 
with the glories of His own image, to one wholly destitute 
of the beauty of holiness and the light of intelligence. 
But having preferred the noblest order of beings, its in- 
separable incident, a liability to moral evil, could not have 
been excluded." 

"Hence God is the author of all good, and of good 
alone; and evil proceeds not from Him nor from His per- 
mission, but from an abuse of those exalted and unshackled 
powers whose nature and whose freedom constitute the 
glory of the moral universe" (lb. p. 198). 

True it is that "creatures beaming with the glories" of 
God's image are infinitely preferable to those without in- 
telligence enough to sin; and it will therefore be conceded 
that "there is no difficulty in conceiving why God should 
have preferred a universe" of such. But this gives us no 
aid in conceiving how His holiness is consistent with their 
creation, when He knew that they would, after their crea- 
tion and their brief existence, be the victims of unending 
and remediless torment — nor of conceiving how such suf- 



56 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

ferings are to be justified, because the "glory of the moral 
universe" could not be established without a state of 
things which rendered them inevitable. 

But if it can be shown that God created these intelligent 
and responsible beings, foreknowing that though they 
would sin and suffer the penalty due to their sins — a pen- 
alty the effect of which would be reformatory — that though 
they might not repent under the discipline of this earthly 
dispensation; yet that they would do so ultimately, even 
if in the indefinite future, under the severer discipline of 
the place of departed spirits, or of the place into which 
they would be received after judgment; and that that suf- 
fering would, as a foil, only heighten the joy and glory of 
their restoration — a joy and glory only attainable for them 
through such suffering — then indeed may we see clearly 
that " moral evil" has been turned by God into a blessing; 
and was the only means by which he could "give and con- 
tinue existence to free moral agents, and govern them 
for their own good, as well as for His glory " (Ibid p. 198). 

We hope to be able to show hereafter that on the theory 
(a reasonable one indeed it seems) that death does not ex- 
tinguish the faculty of repentance any more than it does the 
rest of the faculties of the soul, an ultimate restoration to 
God is demonstrable on known principles, and that a true 
interpretation of Scripture is consistent with that demon- 
stration, and in fact confirms it. Without such a theory 
we do not believe the existence of " moral evil " can be 
shown to be "consistent with the holiness of God," even 
by such a master as Dr. Bledsoe. 

At all events, even those who cherish this hopeful faith 
are greatly indebted to him for the aid he has given them 
in finding peace on the great question of the origin of 
evil, by removing mountain ranges, very Alps and Apen- 



CONDITION OF THE LOST — VARIOUS THEORIES. 57 

nines of ancient clouds and darknesses, which, though they 
had been left behind them, would still have threatened 
them with recurring doubts on these old questions. This 
great purifier of moral atmospheres has shown them a clear 
and smiling sky in their rear. 

Second. Those who interpret the words as meaning a punish- 
ment that either immediately annihilates, or else endures till it 
extinguishes the soul. 

Of this doctrine it may be remarked that, as with almost 
every conceit which men have adopted on every possible 
question about religion, there is a good deal in the Scrip- 
tures that may be interpreted in harmony with it; but 
there is much more there which is in antagonism with it. 
Moreover, it is one among those least consonant with 
reason and with instinct. It is in part for this reason, per- 
haps, that it has found fewer adherents, under any creed, 
than some harsher opinions on the future destiny of the 
impenitent. Little therefore need be said about it. 

Philosophically, it is inconceivable that the all-wise 
Creator, who sees the end from the beginning, could anni- 
hilate anything he had made. This would imply a vacil- 
lation unworthy of infinite foresight. To change its form 
according to different emergencies of time and season and 
occasion, would only be a conformity to the law of variety, 
which is one of the chief glories of creation; but to anni- 
hilate any essence could serve no good end, it would seem, 
if it were wisely created in the beginning. The natural 
philosophers have long since adopted as a canon that no 
atom is ever lost, in whatever varieties of form and con- 
dition it may reappear. The idea of annihilation is abhor- 
rent to reason and to sentiment, but we readily admit that 
neither of these are entirely safe guides on such high 
themes. To the "law and to the testimony," as interpreted 



58 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

by a just reason and sentiment alone, can we with perfect 
safety submit such questions. 

The state of the wicked is almost everywhere described 
in Scripture as a continued existence; thus, they are to be 
subjected to " wrath and indignation, tribulation and an- 
guish" (John ii, 8-9); they are to awake to "shame and 
everlasting contempt" (Dan. xii, 2); and in almost all the 
texts descriptive of their condition, a state of conscious suf- 
fering is described, and not of annihilation. Why need 
they " awake" to.be annihilated? This might have been 
done while they slept, if intended. If they are not to be 
annihilated immediately after they awake to judgment, 
but are to linger out ages of shame and anguish, until the 
soul, no longer able to bear the intolerable load, languishes 
into a dismal extinction, the task of reconciling such a 
fate with the pity and love of God would be an absolute 
impossibility. There is no mere man not utterly besotted, 
who could witness the writhings of a mangled brute mor- 
tally wounded, whose pity would not extend the merciful 
blow that would end its pangs; and can we suppose that 
God, who intended ultimately to annihilate the impeni- 
tent dead, and who could annihilate, if He chose, as easily 
as He could create, would be less pitiful than man? 

In many texts there are strong side-lights against the 
idea of annihilation. As an example, take Isaiah lvii, 16: 
"For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always 
wroth ; for the spirit should fail before Me, and the souls which 
I have made" — as if to say, "since it is impossible that the 
souls which I have made can fail before Me, as they must 
do if my wrath continue to burn, therefore I cannot be 
wroth forever." This text bears even more strongly against 
the idea of an endless and hopeless punishment than it 
does against the idea of annihilation ; but as we reserve 



eOHBITION OF THE LOST — VARIOUS THEORIES. 59 

the former for future consideration, we only remark here 
that horrible as either idea is, the latter is least so, and 
might be more generally accepted but that its rival has 
the prestige of traditional dogma to support it and give 
it the advantage. 



60 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE VARIOUS THEORIES AS TO THE CONDITION OF THE LOST — 

CONTINUED. 

A STILL milder form of opinion is now to be stated. 
Third. Those ivho interpret the words as meaning a pun- 
ishment that is xonian, or till the end of the seon, age, or dis- 
pensation. 

As we have presented the views of one, among the ablest 
and most philosophical of those who believe in the endless 
and hopeless punishment of the wicked, so now we present 
as the representative of the third view an able Scriptural 
discussion of the question recently published anonymously 
(by Lockwood Brooks & Co., Boston, 1876). It is by an 
11 orthodox minister of the gospel," and is named "is eter- 
nal punishment unending?" The author denies the doctrine 
of endless and hopeless punishment to be revealed in 
Scripture, and states his conclusion to be that of "nesci- 
ence," viz: that the Bible, while teaching future punish- 
ment in terms sufficiently explicit and severe for the pur- 
poses of moral government, does not positively declare the 
duration of that punishment (preface). In other words, 
"that the Scriptures really leave the duration of the Io- 
nian punishment' an open question" (p. 83). The author 
states that the design of his " essay is a mere inquiry into 
facts" as to what the Bible teaches expressly or impliedly; 
and that " no entrance is designed into the metaphysical 
and ethical arguments which the subject invites and by 



THE VARIOUS THEORIES — CONTINUED, 61 

which it is often perplexed, but simply an inquiry into 
the answer which the Scripture returns to the question — 
Is 'eternal punishment' absolutely endless?" (preface). Lest 
any one should suppose the title of the argument to be 
one proposing a sort of identical equation, as if "eternal" 
necessarily means the same as "endless," he refers the 
reader to the sequel. The argument is confined almost en- 
tirely to a critical and exegetical discussion of Scripture 
texts bearing on the subject. The following is an outline 
of the argument. 

There are many passages in our English Testaments that 
look like declarations of the endlessness of future punish- 
ment. At the head of the list stands Matthew xxv, 46 : 
" These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the 
righteous into life eternal." The question presents itself, 
whether our translators have correctly represented the 
original words of our Lord. Now these words "everlasting," 
"eternal," are here and everywhere in the Scriptures 
represented in the original by the single Greek adjective 
alcoviov (seonion) — a word anglicised by Tennyson xonian, 
so that the text above and all similar texts mean "seonian 
punishment" and "seonian life." 

The adjective seonian is derived from the Greek noun 
seon (atcov). The Old Testament was translated during the 
second and third centuries before Christ from the Hebrew 
into Greek. It is called the septuagint, and is designated 
by the numeral LXX — which was the Bible of the Apos- 
tles. The use of the word in the LXX will help us to un- 
derstand its use in the Gospels and Epistles. If the word 
seonian has not a strict and uniform reference to endless 
duration in the LXX, we shall need a decisive reason for 
assigning it such a meaning in the New Testament. Before 
considering the meaning of the word, it may be remarked 



62 TliE DEATH OF DEATrf.- 

that if seon be taken to mean eternity, seonian the adjective 
might well mean belonging to eternity; and seonian punish- 
ment might mean the punishment taking place in eternity 
(without any reference to its duration) as well as the pun- 
ishment that lasts through eternity. But what does seonian 
mean in the Scripture? We find it to be of most elastic 
meaning. In Genesis xxi, 33, it is used of God — "the 
everlasting (seonian) God." In Ibid xvii, 8, of Abraham's 
title to Canaan — "an everlasting (seonian) possession." In 
Numbers xxv, 13, of Phinehas and his posterity — "an 
everlasting (seonian) priesthood." In Proverbs xxii, 28, of 
boundaries — "the ancient (seonian) landmark." In Hab- 
akkuk iii, 6, of "the perpetual (seonian) hills." Thus the 
word may denote any extent of duration, from a landmark 
to the Infinite God, and is to be interpreted therefore in 
respect to duration with reference to the word joined with it. 
In the New Testament it is used in the same way in refer- 
ence to the ages past; as in 2 Tim. i, 9 — "before the world 
began" or before seonian times. In regard then to the 
important text in Matthew, whether we understand that 
" seonian punishment" means simply the punishment taking 
place in eternity— a, translation that the highest scholarship 
approves of — or whether we think that the word has some 
reference to duration also, we are far from obtaining from 
the word seonian any testimony to the endlessness of future 
punishment. 

But the Greek like the English has its appropriate word, 
says our author, to "express with precision the idea of 
endlessness. When the endlessness of future punishment 
was first declared to be an article of the Christian faith, 
in the middle of the sixth century, the word ateleutetos 
(drsAeuTevoz — endless) was employed for that purpose — a 
word not found in the New Testament, but quite classical. 



THE VAKIOUS THEORIES — CONTINUED. 63 

The word endless is found in our version in 1 Tim. i, 4 — 
" endless genealogies" — where the orginal is aperantos 
(dnepavroz — interminable), and also in Heb. vii, 16 — 
"endless life" — where the original is akataleiltos {dxardXozoQ 
— indissoluble). * * * Can it be regarded as accidental 
and insignificant that the sacred writers never employed 
such terms in describing the future state, but confined 
themselves to what appears thus far as an elastic and am- 
biguous word — xonian?" (p. 7-8). "It is beyond all ques- 
tion a fact that demands to be accounted for before pro- 
ceeding to fabricate out of a single ambiguous word of so 
varied an application as this seonian, a test either of doc- 
trinal orthodoxy or of church communion" (p. 9). 

But if the adjective seonian gives us no necessary idea of 
endlessness, let us see if the noun seon, from which it is 
derived, does so. This word is used by the LXX as the 
equivalent of the Hebrew word 'Olam, which in the Hebrew 
Testament very frequently meant a ivorld-period or cycle. 
In Ecclesiastes i, 4: "The earth abideth forever," literally 
for the 'Olam or cycle — LXX for the xon. In Psalm cxlv, 
13: "Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom," literally a 
kingdom of all 'Olams or cycles — LXX of all xons. In 
Exodus xl, 15: "Their anointing shall surely be for an 
everlasting priesthood," literally for a priesthood of 'Olam 
or a cycle — LXX a priestly anointing for the seon (but 
note that this 'Olam, cycle, or seon, closed with the Mosaic 
dispensation. — Heb. vii, 11-12). In Psalm cxliii, 3: 
"Those that have been long dead," literally the dead of 
\Olam, or, as we should say, "the dead of ages" — LXX the 
dead of seon. "The word seon accordingly retains in the 
New Testament this peculiar Hebraistic color which the 
LXX have given it" (p. 10). He then gives great num- 
bers of instances from the New Testament, commencing 



64 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

with Matthew xxviii, 20: "With you always to the end of 
the world" (end of the aeon), and ending with Revelations 
iv, 9: "Who liveth forever and ever" (to the aeons of the 
aeons). He then states that an examination of all the 
passages in the New Testament in which the word occurs 
will yield the following results : 

1. That it denotes a period of duration. 

2. That it is used very frequently, much more often than 
by the classic Greek in the 'plural. This fact is in the way 
of the assertion that aeon has inherently the idea of infinite 
duration, for only finite things can have a plural. We 
cannot speak of the coming eternities, but Paul speaks 
(Eph. ii, 7) of "the ages (aeons) to come." 

3. That the present world-period or course of things is 
spoken of as this seon, or the aeon, or an aeon. 

4. That the period or course of things which is imme- 
diately to succeed the present is likewise called that seon, 
or the seon, or the coming aeon. 

5. That past duration, the course or courses of things 
that have proceeded the present, is called the aeon, or the 
aeons, or simply aeons. 

6. That future duration in its whole compass is described 
as a succession of aeons. 

7. That the regular phrase for unlimited duration— -for 
the aeons, or for the aeons of aeons — strictly denotes an indefi- 
nite succession of these finite periods or aeons. 

8. That there is no single word that regularly carries the 
meaning of our word eternity. 

But it is said that the phrase eis ton aiona (e*c tov alcova) 
— for the aeons — translated in our version "forever," (as in 
John vi, 58), "uniformly denotes endless duration," or, as 
Dr. Robinson's "New Testament Lexicon" says, "for the 
aeon " is to be regarded as "always implying duration with- 



THE VAEIOUS THEORIES — CONTINUED. 65 

out end " (Lexn. p. 21). He cites as instance Heb. v, 6, 
where Christ is spoken of as a "priest forever." But the 
priesthood of Christ being, according to the Westminster 
catechism, one of the three offices which Christ as our Re- 
deemer executes, it continues only so long as His redeem- 
ing work continues. It ends when redemption is accom- 
plished. So Prof. Stuart, a high authority, remarks upon 
Heb. v, 6: "'For the xon'* is to be taken in a qualified 
sense here, as often elsewhere, — compare Luke i, 33, with 
1 Cor. xv, 24, 28. The priesthood of Christ will doubtless 
continue no longer than His mediatorial reign; for when 
His reign as mediator ceases, His whole work both as 
mediator and as priest will have been accomplished" 
(covenant Heb. p. 340). 

Again, Dr. Robinson cites: "I will pray the Father, 
and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may 
abide with you forever (for the seon), even the Spirit of 
truth" (John xiv, 16). Now the mission of the Spirit as 
comforter is during the period that Christ has gone to pre- 
pare a place for His disciples. As God the Holy Ghost He 
will be with them forever, but as Comforter he comes 
during the absence of Christ. These are the terms of the 
office. 

The third instance cited by Dr. Robinson is in 1 Pet. i, 
25: "The word of the Lord endureth forever" (for the 
aeon). It is true that the word of God endureth forever — 
for the xons of the xons — but the context shows that the 
thought in this text is simply that the word of God is not 
transitory, but stands to the world's end — just as in Deu- 
teronomy xxix, 29 : " The things which are revealed belong 
to us and our children forever," — in which the extent of 
the seon is defined by the words immediately following: 
"That we may do all the words of this law" during the 



66 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

period of the Mosaic dispensation, which ended near two 
thousand years ago. 

In the New Testament our translators have stamped this 
limited meaning on eis ton aiona. See 1 Cor. viii, 13 : "I 
will eat no meat while the world standeth " (for the seon). 
The Old Testament use of the phrase in the LXX exactly 
corresponds with this, and there occur, as Dr. Taylor Lewis 
observes, "immense extremes in the use of the word" — as 
in Exodus xxi, 6, the servant "shall serve his master for- 
ever" (for the seon), and in Deut. xxxii, 40, where God says 
"I live forever" (for the seon). Here temporal service and 
Divine existence are comprehended within the elastic 
limits of the same phrase. 

"The result of a critical analysis of all the passages 
where the phrase occurs is this: it uniformly denotes not 
' duration without end,' but permanent duration; permanent 
according to the nature of the subject, covering in one case 
merely the period during which a blasted fig-tree stands 
(Matt, xxi, 19), and in the other the eternity of our Lord. 
To affirm that it always implies duration without end, is as 
contrary to fact as to imply that it never does" (p. 16). 
If then the punishment of the wicked is to be measured 
by a term meaning duration according to the nature of 
the subject, "the very point on which we need information 
is, how long is that? How long with reference both to the 
desert of punishment and the nature of the punishment, 
and the capacity of the sufferer to endure punishment, 
and the character of Him who appoints the punishment?" 
(p. 7). "If it be assumed (1) that the seonian punish- 
ment means punishment forever, and (2) that this ' for- 
ever' means as long as the person who is punished exists, 
it remains to be shown (3) that his existence is itself 
endless before his punishment can be positively declared 



THE VAHIOUS THEOEIES — CONTINUED. 67 

to be an absolutely endless one, and the passage of Scrip- 
ture that affirms this (3) yet remains to be discovered" 

(p. 17). 

"It seems then that the adjective xonian, neither by it- 
self, nor by what it derives from its noun xon, gives any 
testimony to the endlessness of future punishment. Futu- 
rity being represented in the New Testament as a succes- 
sion of xons, 'seonian punishment,' so far as the phrase it- 
self can carry its own interpretation, is altogether of in- 
definite duration, — all that the definition 'seonian' gives 
with any certainty being this, that this punishment belongs 
to or occurs in the seon or the seons to come" (p. 17). 

If then the word seonian does not convey the idea of an 
endless punishment, do any words connected with it give 
it that signification? We find "seonian fire" (Matt, xviii, 
8); "seonian damnation" where a more approved reading 
is "a3onian sin " (Mark iii, 29); "aeonian judgment" (Heb. 
vi, 2). None of these words add further definiteness to 
the adjective — indeed, the phrase "seonian destruction" (2 
Thess. i, 9) needs the constant vigilance of the traditional 
school to rescue it from the abuse of the annihilationists. 

There are some texts that in our version are as decisive 
as the great text in Matthew xxv, 46, already examined, 
but which in the original become quite as indefinite. Thus, 
in Mark ix, 43, "The fire that never shall be quenched," 
the word "never" is a contribution of our translators to 
the original word asbestos ($£/3scroc). This may be trans- 
lated "unquenched" as well as "unquenchable," and even 
if translated " unquenchable," the word may mean a fire 
that lasts very long, or is for the present beyond control, 
just as well as one that is literally endless. We often say 
that a fire rages with " unquenchable fury," which only 



68 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

burns till its material is consumed. Isaiah uses the word 
(lxvi, 24) of the "carcasses" of rebels that were burned. 

A similar addition to the force of the original has been 
made by our translators in Mark iii, 29: "Hath never for- 
giveness." The original in the most approved texts reads ; 
"Hath not forgiveness for the seon, but is involved in an 
seonian sin." In the parallel text in Matthew xii, 32, the 
original fairly rendered reads : " It shall not be forgiven him 
either in this seon or in the one to be." Perhaps no text has 
been more strained beyond its legitimate import than John 
iii, 36: "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, 
but the wrath of God abideth on him." " Shall not see 
life" is assumed to mean "shall never see life." "The 
wrath of God abideth on him " is assumed to be the same 
as "abideth evermore" Thus have orthodox men taught 
their opponents to wrest the Scriptures. 

"There are, however, three texts in the New Testament, 
in which the form of words elsewhere denoting unlimited 
duration is used in what seem to be descriptions of future 
punishment": 

1. "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever 
and ever (for aeons of aeons)" — Rev. xiv, 11. 

2. "And her [Babylon's] smoke rose up (literally rises 
up) forever and ever (for the aeons of the aeons) " — Rev. 
xix, 3. 

3. "And the devil (with the beast and false prophet) 
shall be tormented day and night forever and ever) for the 
aeons of the aeons) " — Rev. xx, 10 (p. 23). 

If we deal with these texts as investigators rather than 
as advocates, we will not find them to give additional 
strength to the idea of endless punishment. The first two 
may be considered as one. The original of the imagery is 
found in Isaiah xxxiv, 10, in reference to the judgment on 



THE VARIOUS THEORIES — CONTINUED. 69 

Idumea, "the smoke thereof shall go up forever" (Hebrew 
"for 'olam;" LXX, "time of seon). "The New Testament 
prophet simply intensifies the ancient figure to ' aeons of 
aeons. 5 But of course neither Isaiah nor John meant lit- 
erally smoke. The ' smoke' of torment means a sign of 
torment, just as smoke is a sign of fire. A sign of torment 
or punishment, then, is to 'rise up' forever and ever. 
Here, now, if we no more desire to exaggerate the declara- 
tions of Scripture than to evaporate them, we have to ask 
the question — does this mean any more than that the pun- 
ishment is to be so signal, so memorable, that its sign or 
memorial, rising up in remembrance will be before intelli- 
gent minds forever? We find warrant for this view in 
Jude 7, where we read that 'Sodom and Gomorrah * * 
are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of 
eternal (seonian) fire.' The fires that destroyed these cities 
soon ceased to burn. But so signal was the catastrophe, so 
proverbial in after ages became the names of Sodom and 
Gomorrah as perpetual monuments of wrath, though 
buried out of sight, that the transient fire storm which 
overwhelmed them, became in the living uses of history 
and of moral instruction a fire truly seonian, the same in 
moral effect as a fire literally everlasting" (p. 24). 

"The remaining text is unique. The devil, the beast 
and the false prophet (who or whatever may be denoted 
by this infernal trinity) are to be 'tormented day and night 
forever.' * * * But taking the words at their face 
value, as we are bound to take all the words of Holy Writ, 
it appears that these three enemies of God (who, by the 
way, do not seem to be human beings) are to be tormented 
endlessty. Are we now to take this as a literal statement of 
fact? * * * In the context we read that 'death and 
hell {Hades, elsewhere meaning the place of departed souls) 



70 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

were cast into the lake of fire' (verse 14). Is not one of 
these neighboring expressions probably just as literal or 
just as figurative as the other? Or must we believe that 
John mixed things here, so that the plainest prose and the 
most high wrought poetry stand in contiguity, with no 
sign of transition to guide the interpreter? * * 
How many such proof-texts from the poetical imagery of 
a book of promise, written for the consolation of a martyr 
church, would be sufficient to counterbalance the omiss : on 
from Gospel or Epistle, of the single plain didactic state- 
ment we are searching for?" (p. 25). 

" There is, however, a text in the Epistle of Jude (verse 
6) which some suppose of special weight — 'The angels 
which kept not their first estate; * * * he hath re- 
served in everlasting chains unto the judgment of the 
great day.' The value of this text is thought to lie in its 
supplying a decisive synonym of the uncertain term 
seonian — for everlasting does not stand here as the equiva- 
lent of seonian, but for a word, aidios (atdioz), which we 
may anglicise as aidian " (p. 26). Aidian is a word " applied 
to the eternity of God (see Rom. i, 20), 'even His eternal 
(aidian) power and Godhead'" (p. 27). But so is xonian 
applied to the eternal God. If, however, aidian means 
uniformly everlasting — though it appears in the New Tes- 
tament only in these two texts — ivhy is it never applied as 
descriptive of the human destiny in the future state ? In the 
" writings of the Apostles the futurity of mankind is only 
seonian" (p. 27). In regard to the text from Jude, Barnes 
says in his notes: "This passage does not in itself prove 
that the punishment of the rebel angels will be eternal, 
but merely that they are kept in a dark prison, * 
which is to exist forever with reference to the final trial" 



THE VARIOUS THEORIES — CONTINUE!). f 1 

(p. 28). So that he does not construe it here as necessarily 
everlasting. 

Our author, having thus concluded that no text in 
Scripture teaches exclusively the doctrine of an endless 
future .punishment, comes to the inquiry whether the New 
Testament teaches it by direct implication. 

He then admits that what Dr. Lewis calls "an aspect of 
finality," appears there with reference to the future of the 
wicked. He cites: "If ye believe not, ye shall die in your 
sins;" "Whither I go ye cannot come" (John viii, 21, 24); 
that a man might "lose himself or be cast away " (Luke ix, 
25) ; Apostates are likened to land that bears only thorns, 
"whose end is to be burned" (Heb. vi, 8); and then the 
Apostle goes on to say that for such "there remaineth no 
more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of 
judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour the ad- 
versaries " (Heb. x, 25,26). The judgment proceeds ac- 
cording to "the deeds done in the body" (2 Cor. v, 10); 
"whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him 
will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven; 
but whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also 
deny before my Father which is in heaven" (Matt, x, 
32, 33). All such passages may be made to favor "an 
aspect of finality," but if w r e are seeking proof-texts, rather 
than pretexts, we find that these texts agree as well with the 
doctrine of annihilation as they do with that of unending 
punishment; and the restorationists also may plausibly 
claim that they agree also with their view. But suppose 
not, we must still inquire if this finality is absolute or 
relative? "Does it cover merely an indefinite period how- 
ever protracted, or rather duration that never comes to a pe- 
riod? Is it a finality for a single aeon or more (compare 
again Mark iii, 29 — 'hath not forgiveness for the won, but is 



72 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

involved in seonian sin'), or 'for the aeons of the seons?' 
If the punishment of the wicked were to be perpetuated 
for an seon or seonian period of great duration, that pros- 
pect might not be inconsistent with the Scriptural repre- 
sentation of the disposition made of the wicked at the last 
day as a finality. A finality no doubt, but how much of a 
one? is the question which we now reverently put to the 
Holy Oracle" (p. 35). 

"Looking forward then into the indefinite succession of 
the seons, we ask, is there any clear, decisive word of Scrip- 
ture that shuts us up to the certainty that the result of the 
present life is an absolute finality to the lost?" (p. 36). If 
we point to the declaration, "there remaineth no more sac- 
rifice for sins" (Heb. x, 26), we are challenged to show con- 
clusively how far forward this "no more" reaches. Is it a 
nevermore f or may it not mean, in accordance with so many 
other Scriptures, "no more" for the aeon, or for an indefi- 
nite period? And so in the text: "Ye shall die in your 
sins, whither I go ye cannot come" (John viii, 21), we are 
reminded that when Christ gave this warning he abstained 
from uttering the conclusive never. Many texts have been 
misused and forced beyond their plain sense, in support 
of the doctrine of endless punishment — for example John 
v, 29: "They that have done evil to a resurrection of 
damnation, which, in truth, means a resurrection of judg- 
ment." In like manner it has been hastily inferred from 
" the great gulf fixed " (Luke xxi, 26) between Lazarus 
and Dives, that Dives himself was "fixed" (Greek — made 
fast) forever in the "place of torment." The scene ap- 
pears to be laid in the middle state between death and 
the final judgment, and "fixed" may signify what existed 
during that state. Nothing whatever is said of his condi- 
tion beyond the middle state. 



THE VARIOUS THEORIES — CONTINUED. 73 

Often the language of emotion or of parables is put upon 
the rack of strict construction, in support of the extreme 
view. Such testimony in its favor is supposed by some to 
be given by Christ's remark about Judas (Matt, xxvi, 24) — 
"It had been good for that man if he had not been born." 
We are ignorant of the "special thought that prompted 
Christ's remark. He spoke as he felt in view of what he 
saw coming upon Judas. Who of us is competent to say 
what it was in Judas' situation that most impressed 
the Master's heart ? The remark is however, be it observed, 
as consonant with the theory of Judas' ultimate extinc- 
tion as with the theory of his endless punishment" (p. 41). 

"No more can one fairly deny that Christ's remark 
about Judas is applicable with reference merely to the 
present life, to men whom society has determined to put 
in the pillory of ' shame and everlasting contempt' (Dan. 
xii, 2). Is it not perfectly just to say of a traitor like 
Benedict Arnold, with reference solely to his infamous 
place in his country's history, ' It had been good for that 
man if he had never been born ' ? " (p. 41-2). 

Attempts at strict construction of the parable of the 
unmerciful servant (Matt, xviii, 23, 35) have led interpre- 
ters of different schools in opposite directions. In verse 
34, "delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all 
that was due," Universalists have found their doctrines, 
Romanists their purgatory, others the doctrine of endless 
punishment — all in the pregnant monosyllable " till" The 
Universalist and the Romanist assume that the debt will 
sometime be paid. While all the time the parable meant 
simply to teach that he "shall have judgment without 
mercy, that hath showed no mercy" (James ii, 13). "The 
history of the interpretation of such a passage exhibits the 
spell which any prepossession as to the contents of Scrip- 
4 



74 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

ture always casts upon the interpreter, however endeavor- 
ing to construe language strictly " (p. 43). 

"Another passage similarly misused is Matt, v, 25, 26 — 
especially the last clause — 'thou shalt by no means come 
out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.' 
Professor Bartlett, following Meyer, regards this as teach- 
ing 'an endless imprisonment,' and that 'the removal of 
sin from the prisoner is an impossibility.' Theodore 
of Mopsuestia, the greatest theologian of the Eastern 
Church in the fifth century, took just the opposite view, 
'for never would he have said 'till thou hast paid the 
uttermost farthing,' were it not possible for us, paying 
the penalty of our faults, to be freed from them.' At the 
root of each view of the passage lies the mistaken pre- 
sumption, that it teaches something about future punish- 
ment and its duration. Curious indeed are the contortions 
of commentators to explain on this presumption who the 
'adversary' is. Clement thought he was the Devil, Aug- 
tine thought he was God, and so on. But the reference of 
the text to future punishment at all is as imaginary as in 
that other text, which is worth mentioning here, only lest 
some reader should suppose that we do not know how he 
relies on it, viz: 'If the tree fall toward the south, or to- 
ward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there 
shall it be'" (Eccle. xi, 3). 

"Still another passage where the reference, which some 
think they find to a changeless future state, is wholly 
foreign to the original thought is in Rev. xxii, 11: 'He 
that is unjust, let him be unjust still,' etc. Lange (Com- 
ment, p. 397) interprets it as follows: 'If we S3ek for a 
common fundamental thought that shall lie at the basis 
of all four propositions, it is contained in the following 
words : 'since the judgment is at the door, let every person 



THE VARIOUS THEORIES — CONTINUED. 75 

prepare himself for it after his own free choice." That this 
very idea indirectly offers to the wicked the strongest ad* 
monition to repent is self-evident. Dr. N. Adams very 
fitly remarks: ' Among the closing words of the Bible 
these accents fall on the ears like the last notes of a bell 
that calls to the house of prayer.' The context (verses 
10, 12) certifies that this call is to an immediate, present 
decision of the future state. That this is an unalterable 
decision for an endless future, may be true, but, as a con- 
clusion from this text, it is reached only by one of those 
surprising jumps by which some expositors are wont to 
leave their texts far behind " (p. 43-4). 

Our author thus reaches the conclusion that Scripture 
does not either expressly, or by necessary implication, re- 
veal to us an endless future punishment for the wicked. 

He then discusses the question whether we are bound 
to infer it as the natural result of sin. This he affirms is 
a speculative question, and cannot be definitely decided. 
We can no more say now, as we could in considering what 
the Scriptures actually say or abstain from saying, what is 
certain, but only what is probable. And we must observe 
that the "Scripture has abstained from explicitly answer- 
ing this question, and has left us to draw our own inferences 
from what it has revealed of the nature and tendency of 
sin to perpetuate its own punishment" (p. 53). 

After dwelling on the self-perpetuating nature of sin, he 
says: "If now we set aside the question of a possible re- 
storation, there are before us two alternative suppositions, 
and only two which may be expressed in a triple form, 
viz: either this destructive work of sin runs on without 
end, or its tendency is to a limit beyond which there is 
nothing more to be destroyed, and consequently nothing 
more to suffer. Either this worsening growth of sin con- 



76 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

tinues unlimited, until even the least of lost sinners be- 
comes an inconceivable colossus of iniquity, a vastly in- 
tensified Satan, or it stops somewhere. Either the Almighty 
exerts his power to preserve hopeless sufferers in existence 
for the sole purpose that they may perpetually endure de- 
struction; or at length he permits them, when their disease 
has run its course and done its work, to lose their existence, 
which can no more be anything but to them a curse, to 
the universe a discord, and to him a regret" (p. 54-5). 

"We affirm with the fullest persuasion, that a doctrine 
so fraught with horror as the endless conscious misery of 
fellow-creatures, is not to be accepted as a tenet of the 
Christian faith on any less conclusive evidence than an 
unmistakable word of God. And none such can we find. 
Future punishment is indeed most positively announced 
by all the symbolism of pain and woe. The duration and 
result of it are shrouded in a dread impenetrable mystery 
by the terms that describe it. * * * The single point 
of the endlessness of the aeonian punishment is not yet re- 
vealed. It is not disproved by aught that is said. It may 
be true for aught that we yet know. But until w r e have 
received a positive revelation of it, we are not required to 
accept it as an article of the Christian faith. For aught 
that we yet know it may not be true" (p. 61). 

"We speak Scripturally of 'eternal punishment' only 
when we drop from the phrase the idea of duration, and 
mean simply the punishment taking place in eternity. That 
this is no modern liberal use of the word, our English 
Bibles bear witness in the phrase 'eternal judgment' (Heb. 
vi, 2), w r hich Robinson's lexicon refers to the 'judgment 
of the last day,' and which means simply the judgment 
taking place in eternity" (note to p. 55). 

We are then left at liberty to "choose whichever of these 



THE VARIOUS THEORIES — CONTINUED. 77 

two alternatives our own reason may approve, viz: the 
ultimate extinction of the sinning soul by the spreading 
cancer of its own decay, or the infinite continuance of the 
' destruction ' of a finite being, upheld in endless being by 
Almighty power, in order that it may be endlessly de- 
stroyed ; like that ' Prometheus bound,' according to the 
Greek poets, on Mount Caucasus, whose liver, perpetually 
devoured by vultures, and as perpetually growing to be 
devoured unceasingly, gave an endless banquet to them, 
and to him an endless torment. He who can be certain 
that these opposite alternatives bound the diverse possi- 
bilities of the case, will perhaps not be at a loss which to 
choose" (p. 62). 

Finally our author says that the conclusion he has 
reached may be regarded by some as met in some measure, 
by the historical objection. That objection may be pre- 
sented "in some such form as this — it is said: The doc- 
trine of eternal punishment is not attractive to any mind. 
How comes it then that the best minds of the church have 
for many ages recognized it in the New Testament, if in- 
deed it be not there? This question, though weighty, is 
neither unanswerable nor difficult. The conclusions of 
the best minds as to what the Scriptures actually teach 
are liable, especially in uncritical ages, to be vitiated by 
wrong translations" (p. 64). Of which he gives instances, 
for example that of Augustine drawing from the Latin 
version of Rom. v, 12, and transmitting to after ages the 
notion that u all sinned in Adam " (" in whom all sinned ") ; 
whereas in the Greek it reads "because all sinned." He 
then, after giving other instances, points out the erroneous 
notions that have come down to us from these same "best 
minds" — such as the damnation of infants, purgatory and 
the like; and the lower culture, moral and intellectual, of 



78 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

ancient than of modern times, under which harsher views 
of justice, and of punishment, human and divine, pre- 
vailed there. 

But if we are to be greatly influenced on such questions 
by traditional views, the weight of authority is against the 
idea of endless punishment. The Greek was the vernac- 
ular tongue of most of these writers, and they use the same 
word which is used in the Scriptures — seonian — in their 
views about future punishment. In addition to this we 
have the positive testimony of many of them against an 
endless punishment. He cites from their writings passa- 
ges which show that Justin Martyr regarded seonian pun- 
ishment as indefinitely rather than infinitely long, and in 
some cases at least designed to terminate by the will of 
God in loss of existence; that Augustine himself enter- 
tained views much milder than that of the modern idea of 
Hell, and in his commentory on Matt, xii, 32, used this 
language: " For it would not be truly said of some that 
they are forgiven neither in this age (seculo) nor in the fu- 
ture, were there not some who though not in this are for- 
given in the future." See the passage discussed in Lange's 
Comment on Matt., pp. 227-229 (see p. 20, note) — that 
Irenaeus seems to have anticipated with Justin Martyr, 
that the wicked would ultimately cease to exist — that the 
Alexandrian school of theology, as represented by its two 
great teachers, Clement and Origen (A. D. 253), was by far 
the greatest light of the first three conturies, and was, 
as is too well known to need proof thoroughly imbued 
with restorationism (see Neander's Church History, I, 
656) — that the same is true of the Church of Antioch, a 
century and a half later, as represented by Diodorus of 
Tarsus, and especially by the "Master of the East" Theo- 
dore of Mopsuestia (died A. D. 427), whom Dr. Dorner 



THE VARIOUS THEORIES— CONTINUED. 79 

calls the first oriental teacher of his time — that Gregory of 
Nyssa (died A. D. 395), whom Dr. Schaff calls "one of the 
most eminent theologians of his time" (History of Chris- 
tian Church, III, 906), expounded and maintained the 
doctrine of a universal restoration " with the greatest logical 
ability and acuteness, in works written expressly for the 
purpose" (Neander's Church History, II, 677) — that "in 
the oriental church, in which, with the exception of those 
subjects immediately connected with the doctrinal contro- 
versies, there was greater freedom and latitude of develop- 
ment [and in which also, we are to remember, the original 
language of the New Testament was the tongue in which 
every church teacher taught and wrote], many respecta- 
ble church teachers still stood forth without injuring their 
reputation for orthodoxy, as advocates of the opposite doc- 
trine [restorationism] until the time when the Origenistic 
disputes caused the agreement with Origen in respect to 
this point also to be considered as something decidedly 
heretical" (Neander's Church History, II, 676) — that the 
Lutheran Dr. J. C. Doderlein states the historical point as 
follows: "the more highly distinguished in Christian an- 
tiquity any one was for learning, so much the more did he 
cherish and defend the hope of future torments some time 
ending." After mentioning some distinguished names, 
Dr. D. goes on to say: "This, however, was not the view 
of a few persons and one privately entertained, but general? 
and maintained by many advocates. Augustine, at least 
(' Enchiridion,' ch. 112), testifies that ' some, nay, very many? 
pity with human feeling the everlasting punishment of 
the damned, and do not believe that it is to be so.' The 
following age, although a belief in perpetual torments pre- 
vailed by authority, yet clearly did not lack milder 
views" (Instit Theol. chr. II, pp. 199-202)— and finally, 



80 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

that the authority by which the doctrine was finally m- 
posed on the church was of this sort: "The endlessness of 
future punishment was first authoritatively announced as an 
article of the orthodox creed in the year 544, at the in- 
stance of the Emperor Justinian I, an authority in theo- 
logical matters of equal respectability with King Henry 
VIII of England" (p. 78). 

Our author then, in another chapter, declares his dissent 
from the restorationist view, as not to be proved by Scripture. 
His conclusion from the whole discussion is, that on the 
subject of the condition of the lost, we have no positive 
evidence from Scripture of anything but a punishment, 
the duration and result of which is shrouded in an impene- 
trable mystery. 

Fourth. Those who interpret the words as meaning a pun- 
ishment, or suffering, indefinite as to its duration, but who be- 
lieve also that it is one enduring as long as the sinful temper en- 
dures, and terminable in the future life, as in this, by repentance 
and restoration to God, through Christ. 

We are not able to give in detail the views of those who 
may hold to the above opinion, because, while reading 
freely on the other side, we have all our lives abstained 
studiously from reading the works of either Universalists 
or Restorationists. The proposition is an expression of 
those principles which we hope will be found to be sus- 
tained by the sequel, aided by what has been already 
written. 



SIN NOT NECESSAEILY SELF-PERPETUATING. 81 



CHAPTER VI. 

SIN NOT NECESSARILY SELF- PERPETUATING, AND ITS PUNISH- 
MENT NOT THEREFORE UNENDING. 

THE demonstration in the last chapter that Scripture 
neither by its terms, nor by necessary implication, 
teaches the infinitely unending character of future punish- 
ment, seems to be complete. We are at liberty then to seek 
for some other view in regard to its duration, which shall 
harmonize both with reason and Scripture. The anonymous 
author of that argument prefers, with good reason, the 
view that the quantitative duration of future punishment is 
not intended to be revealed at all ; but that the punish- 
ment, so far as indicated by the words describing it, is to 
be one "taking place in eternity." But even he seems to be 
trammelled by the idea that an infinite punishment might 
have been definitely revealed to us by God, by the suita- 
ble use of the words " never," "never ending," "everlast- 
ing," and the like, had He seen fit to do so; and he repeat- 
edly speaks of how near the Scriptures come to such a 
revelation without actually making it. From this he 
draws an argument in favor of his views, viz : that since it 
might have been done and has not been done distinctly and 
indisputably, therefore he is right in supposing that it 
was not intended to be done by the language which others 
rely on to prove it; and that so we are left simply with 
"nescience" on the subject. 

We submit that it is true, not only that Scripture does 
not reveal expressly or impliedly an infinite future pupistj? 



82 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

ment, as he has so clearly proved, but that such a punish- 
ment could not have been definitely revealed by such words or 
by any word. We have already seen from Dr. Bledsoe 
what is approved both instinctively and by our reason, 
that God cannot work a contradiction. Now the mind of 
man is by his very nature limited and finite, and an end- 
less punishment, or an endless thing of any sort, is by its 
nature infinite. Again, human language is like the human 
mind, limited and imperfect, and cannot therefore be made 
the medium of a perfect revelation. To say that God 
could convey a perfect revelation of an infinite thought, 
through the imperfect medium of human language, into 
the finite mind, is to say that which is triply contradictory 
in terms. Indeed the very words which we use — endless 
eternal, infinite — can by no possibility convey to our minds 
anything more than the idea of indefiniteness. A great 
modern thinker — the late Rev. William Sparrow, D. D. — 
in a sermon on " subjects that do not concern us" says : " time 
we understand, but eternity we do not understand ; it is 
not even thinkable. It is not, as perhaps we may have 
been in the habit of supposing, a mere elongation of time. 
* * * ^y e gpea]^ indeed, of eternity in application to 
man, but not in its proper and distinctive meaning; we 
mean by it in such case, only time with its limits undeter- 
mined," etc. (sermons p. 284). Of the eternal God him- 
self, what can we understand except that he is beyond our 
conception great, wise, good and perfect? Of his existence 
from eternity to eternity, from seon to aeon, what can we 
understand except that He has existed from a period and 
will endure to a period beyond our conception? What else 
but ft recognition of this incapacity of our minds, is meant 
by that question in Scripture " Canst thou by searching find 
out God ?" (Job ii, 7). As in regard to time, so it is in regard 



Sin not necessarily self-perpetuating. 83 

to space. We call space infinite or unending. Can we 
understand anything of it except that it expands indefi- 
nitely? Conceive a great white ball to be launched with 
irresistible force by an Almighty hand, from our world out 
into space. Watch it as it moves indefinitely on its way; 
follow it with the eye as it goes through our solar system, 
stretches away through constellations and sun clusters, and 
still moves on, on, on through the lights and intervening 
darknesses of myriads of nebulae; pursue it; wait on it till 
eye and brain reel, and the mind is wearied. Our feeble 
powers will compel us at last to say — "it must find an end 
somewhere;" but even then the exhausted mind will react 
enough to say on the instant — "there must be more space 
beyond that end" Yes, truly, the idea of eternity is "un- 
thinkable," and therefore incommunicable. 

But some one will say — "if this be so, what warrant 
have we for the idea of what we call the unending life of 
the blest? We see in Matt, xxv, 46, the language, c these 
shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the right- 
eous into life eternaV— thus using equivalent terms for the 
two conditions. If a definite idea of what we call unending 
punishment cannot be conveyed to us by human language, 
neither can a definite idea of what we call the infinite and 
unending bliss of heaven be so conveyed." We admit the 
consequence. Not only so, but in the original Greek, the 
terms are not merely equivalent but identical. But these 
terms may mean simply the life or punishment "taking 
place in eternity;" and if not, we do not rest the duration 
of the bliss of heaven on any such vague and indefinite terms. 
They were not intended to convey, because they cannot be 
made to convey an idea of quantitative duration. The 
duration of the bliss of heaven depends on far clearer and 
more definite declarations of Scripture than these. We 



84 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

rest it on those unspeakably grand and glorious texts 
which declare that the redeemed shall be partakers of 
Christ's glory; that they are one with God in Christ; that 
they are "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Rom. 
viii, 17), and the like. Surely no more complete and per- 
fect assurance could be given of their infinite reward. 
They cannot desire, nor is it possible for language to con- 
vey, a fuller idea of happiness and security. If their 
blessed state shall endure as long, and be as full of glory 
as the heirship of Christ, all further words are beggared. 

Though it seems clear, then, that a punishment quantita- 
tive as to its duration is not revealed, yet it seems equally 
clear that a punishment qualitative as to its duration is 
revealed — that is to say, a punishment self-executory, the 
result of sin, and enduring as long as the sinful temper en- 
dures* Dr. Bledsoe agrees to this. He puts it thus : " We 
must take our stand on the position that Omnipotence 
cannot necessitate holiness, and must have recourse to re- 
wards and punishments to secure it, otherwise all evil and 
suffering will remain an inexplicable enigma," &c. (Theod- 
icy p. 306-7). Agreed — but what is the degree of the pun- 
ishment? He replies by another question — "Does not 
the position that a man, a poor, weak, fallible creature, de- 
serves an infinite punishment, an eternity of torments, 
for each evil thought or word, carry its own refutation 
along with it?" (lb. p. 296). But he says further, "it will 
be conceded that if the finally impenitent should continue 
to sin forever, then they forever deserve to reap the rewards 
of sin" (lb. p. 304). Agreed — but will they necessarily 
continue to sin forever? To this he answers^-" This is 
one part of the Scripture doctrine of future punishments, 
that those who endure them will never cease to sin and 
rebel against the authority of God's law" (lb. p. 304); 



SIN NOT NECESSARILY SELF-PERPETUATING. 85 

that " the soul of the guilty * * * will be consigned 
to the regions of the lost, because, by its own repeated acts 
of transgression, it has made sure of its eternal continuance 
in sinning" (lb. p. 305). He further says: "The spectacle 
of punishment for a single day, it will be admitted, would 
be justified on the ground that it was necessary to support 
for a single day a government, especially if that govern- 
ment were vast in extent and involved stupenduous in- 
terests. But if suffering for a single day may be justified 
on such ground, then the exigencies of such a government 
for two days, would justify a punishment for two days, 
and so on ad infinitum. Hence the doctrine of eternal 
punishment in common with the eternal moral govern- 
ment of God is not a greater anomaly than temporal pun- 
ishments in relation to temporal governments" (lb. p. 307). 
The analogy between temporal governments and the 
"eternal moral government of God" does not "run on all 
fours," because the temporal ruler is in no way responsible 
for the citizenship of the culprit. He did not make him 
a subject foreknowing that by becoming so he would surely 
become a criminal. This, however, is a prime factor in 
the investigation of the moral government of God. Still 
the position may be admitted to be sound in respect of 
both governments; provided, first, that the creation of the 
criminal can be justified in connection with such fore- 
knowledge; and, second, that the penalty annexed to the 
offence be merely sufficient to vindicate the authority of 
the government, or to "support it." But Dr. Bledsoe ad- 
mits that the principle of the divine government rests, 
not on the visitation of each offence with an infinite pun- 
ishment, for that this would be unjust; but he rests it on 
the assumption, as we have seen, that those who endure it 
(that is, all who go into the other world impenitent) "will 



86 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

never cease to sin and rebel against the authority of God's law" 
If this be not true, then he does not accept or recognize 
as just the doctrine of eternal punishment, for he further 
states that "no one except those who place themselves be- 
yond the possibility of salvation by their own evil deeds 
is ever lost" (lb. p. 331). 

Admitting now, as we do, that the punishment of sin 
must endure whether in this world or the next, as long as 
the sinful temper endures, let us see if we are bound to 
accept the assertion that the "finally impenitent" (those 
who leave this world in their sins) will certainly continue 
to sin forever. Dr. Bledsoe declares that this is "one part 
of the Scripture doctrine of future punishments" (lb. p. 
304), but does not state the Scripture texts on which he 
relies. If it be tnle, it must be so either because sin is in 
its nature surely self-propagating, or because there is some- 
thing in man's nature or circumstances that makes it so. 
Now we deny that there is any statement in Scripture 
which explicitly, or, by necessary implication, teaches 
that sin either here or hereafter is surely or certainly con- 
stantly progressive. In Prov. v, 22, it is said that "his 
own iniquities shall take the wicked himself," and "he 
shall be holden with the cords of his own sins;" and in 
2 Pet. ii, 14, he is spoken of as one "having eyes full of 
adultery, and that cannot cease from sin." But a reference 
to the original will show that this is not a doctrinal or 
prophetic declaration that there is any sinner who cannot 
or will not cease from sin, but is only a description of those 
who are constantly sinning. The verb "cannot" is not 
used in the original Greek, but the adjective, denoting a 
constant or ceaseless habit; just as we say of any one pos- 
sessed of a ^bad habit, he is constantly doing so and so, he 
is ceaselessly doing so and so, he is everlastingly doing so 



SIN NOT NECESSARILY SELF-PERPETUATING. 8 7 

and so. All such texts declare, what is the experience of 
us all, that the habit of sinning, like every other habit, is 
a growing one, and if not restrained carefully, has a ten- 
dency to self-perpetuation — that sin is like a disease of the 
body, a fretting sore or cancer, which tends to enlarge itself, 
and will do so unless it is cauterized or extirpated. But 
there is no text in Scripture that describes this disease of 
sin as surely self-perpetuating, either in this world or in 
the world to come — no text that describes it as a disease 
that is certainly fatal and immedicable even by the great 
Physician. On the contrary, all the threatenings and pro- 
mises of Scripture are based upon our assumed capacity 
to check its ravages, by God's help, and it is a matter of 
daily experience that this is done. If this were not so, 
then no man could escape. Once inoculated with the 
deadly poison of a single sin, his eternal ruin would be 
inevitable, and among all the myriads of our race, there 
would not be one that could be saved. Such a doctrine 
would "shut the gates of mercy on mankind," in this 
world, no less than in the world to come. This is the in- 
evitable consequence of asserting that sin, by its very nature, 
is surely self-propagating — a consequence to the full as 
horrible as the doctrine of election and reprobation, against 
which Dr. Bledsoe expends so successfully his great 
strength. 

If then sin be not, by its own nature, certainly self-pro- 
pagating, the doctrine that the finally impenitent "will 
never cease to sin " must be due, if true, to some change in 
man's nature wrought by his departing from this world 
impenitent. Can there be any such change? Body and 
soul are indeed essential parts of man, but the body is only 
the tabernacle, the garment of the soul. The soul is the 
animating principle, and the geat of all the moral faculties 



88 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

and endowments of man. Its possession of these faculties 
in no way depends on its connection with the body, how- 
ever essential that connection may be. When dissolution 
comes it is simply a temporary severance of that connection ; 
a putting off by the soul of its earthly clothing. How can 
we conceive that this severance can deprive the soul of any 
of its moral attributes? Nay, do we not know that it can- 
not be so? If, when we depart hence, we are incapable of 
repentance, one of the essential qualities of our nature as moral 
and responsible beings, why should we suppose that we would 
then possess any of the other faculties which now belong 
to us? If one shall be extinguished, why not the rest? 
And why, least of all, should the capacity for repentance 
be that one? Surely the motive to repentance will be 
stronger there than here, if we have any just conception of 
the future state at all. We shall then see "face to face" all 
the truths which we see here only "through a glass, darkly." 
If we may repent here, but may not repent there, where 
we shall see the beauty of holiness and the ugliness of sin 
better than we do here; or if we may not have there that 
sorrow for sin which is the first step to repentance here, it 
must be because the faculty itself has been extinguished. 
But the destruction of one of our faculties, its . hopeless 
ruin, would be, so far as our identity is concerned, the de- 
struction of them all, for the completeness of the moral 
being would be destroyed. On such a supposition we would 
be new creatures, and, therefore, not responsible for the sins 
committed by the former creatures here. This would be 
equivalent to annihilation; for we must either be the same 
beings there that we are here, that is, with all our essential 
attributes unimpaired, or else — there is no other conclu- 
sion — the former being has passed away. How then should 
gin prevent our repentance in the future life any more thai). 



SIN NOT NECESSARILY SELF-PERPETUATING. 89 

in this? Thousands and thousands of men, who have 
sinned ceaselessly and grossly to extreme old age, have 
(thank God) repented at last, and gone to the bliss of the 
redeemed. Few, indeed, as compared with any given num- 
ber may do so, but on the whole they may be numbered 
by thousands. To doubt it would be to doubt the power 
of the cross of Christ, and its adaptation to our fallen state. 
On the other hand, there are as many thousands whose 
lives have been in all moral respects such as to command 
the respect and admiration of men, who have yet departed 
without accepting Christ's salvation. Take the case of the 
young ruler who ran and kneeled to Christ himself, to know 
what he should do "to inherit eternal life" (Mark x, 17-22). 
He was rich in this world, having "great possessions." And 
yet, though surrounded by corruption and beset by temp- 
tations to lusts which he could easily have gratified, he had 
led a strictly moral life, having kept with a godly loyalty 
all the commandments which Christ named to him from 
his youth. He must have said this truthfully, for the Divine 
Redeemer knew his heart, and when he declared his man- 
ner of life, "Christ beholding him, loved him." Though 
he rejected Christ's advice on account of his love of his 
possessions, as most of us in his place would have done, 
yet he evidently did so sorrowfully and reluctantly. He 
sinned, it is true, for covetousness, which is idolatry, is as 
damning as any of the offences which we call "gross sins," 
if not more so; but many of the life-long sinners to 
whom we have referred committed habitually, no doubt, 
not only the sin of covetousness, but the many others also 
from which this young man had been free. It is true in- 
deed that if one "offend in one point, he is guilty of all" 
(James ii, 10), because his offence is that he has set at 
naught the obligation of the law; but yet it is equally true, 



90 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

that when we are weighing the force of the habit of 
sinning, and the capacity to turn from it, the difference is 
broad and important in favor of the young man we are 
considering. The tendency of sin and of sin alone is to 
harden the heart, and make it more difficult for us, in pro- 
portion to the inveteracy and abundance of our sins, to 
repent and turn to Christ; and thus the difficulty in the 
way of the life-long sinner is comparatively much greater 
than in that of the younger and less-hardened sinner. Can 
we suppose then that if dissolution had overtaken that 
young man who kneeled to Christ immediately after his 
interview with Him — that is to say, while still in a moral 
frame so comparatively pure as to command the Saviour's 
approbation — there would have been anything in his nature 
or in the nature of sin which would render it more difficult 
or even as difficult for him to repent in the other world 
as it was for the life-long sinner to repent in this? 

Nay, what warrant has any one to say that after a life 
of sinning here, however long, a man may turn to God 
and live; but that within five minutes after he has passed 
the veil that opens to him in all its reality his true relations 
to his God, he has lost the blessed privilege and capacity 
of returning to him ? True, he will not do so till his hard 
heart has been broken by suffering, and moved by grati- 
tude for the Saviour's love; and it may be that in some cases 
long ages of rebellion will pass away before it is so ; but 
there is in Scripture and in what we know of man's 
nature, and of the nature of sin, no reason why, in any 
case, the hope of his doing so is to be excluded. This 
life is described by Scripture as a scene of probation, of 
trial, of discipline for our good. This discipline is made 
effectual by God's providences, as we call them — that is 
(among other things), by difficulties, by disappointments, 



SIN NOT NECESSARILY SELF-PERPETUATING. 91 

by the sufferings and sorrows which sin produces, by the 
stings of conscience, by the Blessed Spirit's influences 
and His display of the love of Christ for the sinner even 
in the midst of his ingratitude and rebellion. Now, can 
we say that these things will be inoperative or ineffectual 
yonder? On the contrary, do we not understand that 
these very sort of things make up the sufferings of the 
world to come? If their legitimate tendency here is re- 
formation, why should not their operation on the very 
same nature be so there ? 

The Scriptures speak of the state of the wicked both 
here and hereafter as a state of death. As we have already 
seen (in chap, ii), death, in the Scripture sense, is a con- 
dition of the soul, an alienation from the "life of God"; 
and what we call death — the dissolution of the flesh — is 
in truth only a resulting incident of death. Now, the 
Scriptures also speak of death here and hereafter in the 
same terms, and describe it as due in both cases to the same 
cause, viz: "enmity against God." It is sin which causes 
and increase of sin which increases that enmity, and not 
the fact of dissolution or what we call death. On the con- 
trary, so far as our experience goes, the apprehension .and 
the approach of dissolution both tend to abate it. If this 
be so, why should the one condition be capable of revival 
and the other not? In the one case it may be more diffi- 
cult than in the other ; but why should it be absolutely 
impossible in the one, and frequent in the other? But, 
further, the Scriptures not only speak of death here and 
hereafter in the same terms, but they never speak of "death 
eternal" "death everlasting" No such coinage as that ever 
came from the pure mint of God's Holy Word, but is the 
counterfeit currency of man. The anonymous author, 
whose book we have reviewed, notices this in the following 



92 THE DEATH OF DEATEP. 

language: "The Scriptures, which speak freely of seonian 
sin, judgment, fire, destruction, never use the expression 
zeonian death. The phrase 'second death,' four times 
occuring in the revelation of John (as Rev. ii, 11), only 
shows how near the Scripture comes to that other expres- 
sion without using it, and serves to make more marked 
the thorough avoidance of it. Yet theology uses it, or 
what is meant to be its equivalent, and freely speaks of 
'everlasting death.' So our hymn — 

4 Nothing- is worth a thought beneath 
But how I may escape the death 
That never, never dies.' 

It is difficult for one who believes that the sacred writers 
were under a divine superintendance in their use of lan- 
guage to avoid believing that it is not without reason that 
the Scriptures invariably decline to employ a phraseology 
which the interpreters of Scripture have found so appro- 
priate to their own views" (p. 58). 

Especially is this difficult when the opposite phrase 
"everlasting life" and similar expressions are so constantly 
used. This surely needs accounting for if it be true that 
sin certainly perpetuates itself, or is perpetuated to endless 
and hopeless death. We account for it by the belief that 
no being in God's universe ever is or can be condemned 
to a state where repentance and return to his Creator and 
his God is impossible. 

Dr. Bledsoe indeed uses great moderation on this mo- 
mentous subject. After quoting from Butler the statement 
that there is a certain bound, which being transgressed, 
there remains no place for repentance "in the natural 
course of things," he proceeds; "and may we not add, nor 
in the supernatural course of things either; and there only 



SIN NOT NECESSARILY SELF-PERPETUATING. 93 

remains a certain fearful looking for of judgment? As 
this may be the case for aught we knoiv (italics ours), nay, as 
it seems so probable that it is the case, no one is authorized 
to pronounce endless sufferings unjust, unless he can first 
show that the object of them has not brought upon him- 
self an eternal continuance in the practice of sinning — in 
other words, unless he can first show that the sinner does 
not doom himself to an eternity of sinning" (Theodicy p. 
305). Now, though this is moderate, is it not putting the 
burden on the wrong shoulders? Is it not requiring the 
proof of a negative? May we not rather say that "no 
one is authorized to pronounce endless sufferings just, un- 
less he can first show that the object of them has brought 
upon himself an eternal continuance in the practice of 
sinning." We think so, and as we have said before, Dr. 
Bledsoe has not done this. We have endeavored to assume 
the misplaced burden, and to "prove the negative," so far 
as such a thing is capable of proof. 

If, notwithstanding all this, it still be said that the nature 
either of sin or of man is such that dying impenitent he 
cannot or will not afterwards repent, then the reply is that 
it is no vindication of the holiness of God to say, as Dr. 
Bledsoe does, that he is not responsible for evil because 
after he created man he could not prevent his sinning ; or 
to say that he could not coerce man or necessitate his 
holiness. For, though this is true, the answer is that he 
could have forborne to create a being, whose utter and 
hopeless ruin immediately after his creation he could not 
prevent. It is no just reply to this to say, as Dr. Bledsoe 
does, "To this we answer that God did not choose to pre- 
vent sin in this"way,but to create the world exactly as he 
did, though he foresaw the fall and all its consequences, 
because the highest good of his universe required the 



94 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

creation of such a world" (lb. p. 203); because the "suf- 
ferings of the guilty" are "connected with the majesty 
and glory of God's universal and eternal empire" (lb. p. 
307) ; or because " this world with all its wickedness and 
woe is but a dim speck of vitality in a boundless do- 
minion of light that is necessary to the glory and perfection 
of the whole" (lb. p. 207). To those who look at this 
world as we do, not from the outskirts of a "boundless 
dominion," whence it looks like a " dim speck," but from 
its very bosom, it is by no means of such little consequence; 
and even if it were, we are to remember that we are con- 
sidering this question, not as one de minimis, concerning 
which justice and law care not, but as one of indescribable 
importance to us, and as one to be weighed on the princi- 
ples of that justice which sways everything in God's 
"universal and eternal empire," the least as well as the 
greatest. Yes, blessed be God ! the microscope has illus- 
trated the wondrous truth taught us by His Holy Word, 
that to Him great and small are the same; and that our 
little world is as much the object of His Almighty care, 
and the subject of His unerring justice, as central heaven 
itself. " His tender mercies are over all His works " (Psalm 
cxlv. 9). 

What answer is it then to tell us that in view of the good 
and glory of the universe and Himself, " God did not choose 
to prevent sin " by forbearing to create immortal beings, 
who would immediately and certainly fall, albeit by their 
own fault, into an <; infinite punishment, an eternity of 
torments" (lb. p. 296), without hope of release? This is 
the very answer which Dr. Bledsoe's victims — the advocates 
of election and reprobation — are wont to make. If you 
ask of them how it can be right to elect a man from all 
eternity, for no evil he has ever done, to an infinite tor- 



SIN NOT NECESSARILY SELF-PERPETUATING. 35 

ment, they reply, because in the councils of God's wisdom 
he chose to do so, for his glory; and if you suggest that no 
wisdom or glory could justify such an act, they flash upon 
you the lightning of the demand — "Who art thou that re- 
pliest against God ? " It seems strange that Dr. Bledsoe 
should use a weapon in defence of his position, which his 
terrible blows have shown to be so weak in the hands of 
his adversary. We therefore venture to say on his own 
authority, which we estimate very highly, that it is a vain 
reply. It does not exclude us from enquiring into the 
justice and holiness of a choice, ascribed by him to the 
Almighty, without, as we think, any good reason for it. 
We are constrained to think that if his great intellect had 
here thrown off, as it has so often done, the trammels of a 
traditional creed, he would never have been found justi- 
fying the creation of one sure to fall, even by his own 
will, into undying pangs, for the sake of any "glory 'of 
the universe." No! a thousand times, no! that glory 
could only be marred and stained all over by such an 
election. It can have no harmony if the infinite and un- 
ending wailings of anguish and despair are necessarily to 
be mingled forever with its otherwise grand and glorious 
tones. Punishment there must be, sufferings are inevi- 
table — punishment and sufferings bitter and sorrowful, 
and well-deserved, will be the result of man's own sinful 
rebellion against the authority of God's law. They are 
inevitable, because God cannot coerce the unruly wills of 
sinful men into love for Him, so long as they are men, 
without a violation of their natures and his own. But 
justice requires only that they shall be reformatory pun- 
ishments. The true end of punishment will be attained, 
so far as the sinner is concerned, if they shall at some 
future time produce reformation through the love of Christ, 



96 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

God's law will thus be vindicated, and justice can ask no 
more. 

The Scriptures tell us that there are degrees of guilt: 
that some shall be "beaten with many stripes," and some 
" with few stripes " (Luke xii, 47, 48). But this cannot be 
if both are unendingly beaten. If it be said that one will 
be beaten with lighter stripes than another, it does not 
respond to the text, and if it did, a lighter punishment, if 
unending, leaves us little to choose, between it and a heavier 
one, for the duration of it is the real pang in each case. 
If } however, the punishment be not a hopeless one, but only 
lasts till its true ends, the reformation of the sinner, and 
the moral discipline of the universe of intelligent creatures, 
is attained by the vindication of the law, then the text 
will be fully met and the "glory of God's universal and 
eternal empire" will be established on a sure foundation. 
The temporary discord will only enhance its ultimate 
peace, and no harsh note will mingle with the "new song" 
that shall be sung to the glory of Him through whose self- 
sacrifice the triumph will have been achieved. On this 
supposition justice and mercy could both applaud the 
creation of a moral agent, though God foresaw that he 
would fall into sin and sorrow; for He also foresaw that 
he would be redeemed from that fall stronger than when 
he fell. It would plainly appear to be just and merciful 
to create a being "necessary to the glory of the universe," 
who would inevitably fall, if he could and would be re- 
stored, because by restoration from that fall he would have 
attained a secure bliss and glory, impossible for him in any 
other way. 

We conclude then that there is no warrant for saying 
that the "finally impenitent" (those who depart this life 
in their sins), " will never cease to sm and rebel against 



SIN NOT NECESSARILY SELF-PERPETUATING. 97 

the authority of God's law," but have thus made "sure of 
their eternal continuance in sinning"; and therefore un- 
ending punishment cannot be inferred from that principle 
or alleged fact. We have admitted that the tendency of sin 
is to self propagation, and therefore it remains to be con- 
sidered whether that tendency may be, and probably will 
be, or not, checked and overruled, till man is delivered from 
his sins. We see around us every day in the cases of the 
"chiefs of sinners" that it may be, and is, capable of being 
checked and reversed — and this might of itself be sufficient 
on the point — but our enquiry goes further, viz: whether 
it will be so in every case; whether, in spite of the nature 
of sin and the nature of man, the provision made for him 
may be sufficient for this end in all cases, and whether the 
Divine influences may be strong enough to induce the ac- 
ceptance of it by all ; whether sin and death will at last 
triumph over God's love and power in any case; or whether, 
on the contrary, He will triumph in every case over them. 
In short, whether He can and will repair the evil by which 
His perfect universe has been marred. 

Now to say even of a man that he can make a cunning 
instrument or machine, but cannot repair any damage it 
may suffer; or, if it is irreparable, that he cannot destroy 
it utterly and make another like it, would be an absurdity. 
He, who can make, can repair or make anew. If then it 
be absurd to say such a thing of man, ho\v much more 
absurd, nay how blasphemous, would it be to say such a 
thing of God! God can then repair the fall of man. Not 
only can He save a few of His poor miserable creatures, but 
He can erase from the tablets of eternity all the stains of 
time, and can make those very stains themselves cleansing 
and purifying. To do it, He need not coerce man's will or 
necessitate his holiness, but He need only use, as He is now 
5 



93 THE DEATH OF £>EAT£. 

doing, and can still more effectually do hereafter, the abun- 
dant persuasive and alluring influences which are at His 
command, till sooner or later, either here or hereafter, accord- 
ing to the various natures of those to be influenced, the 
desired effect is produced. If this be so, the only question 
is, whether He is willing to do so. On this point we have 
assurances without number from His own infallible lips. 
One only need be cited at this stage of our enquir}^. We 
read that the Lord is "long-suffering to us-ward not willing 
that any should perish, but that all should come to repent- 
ance" (2 Pet. iii, 9). If it be true that he is not willing 
that any should perish, has He manifested that willingness 
by any provision capable of preventing us all from perish- 
ing? He has done so. He has set forth a remedy of so stu- 
pendous a character, of such a benign, ameliorating, redeem- 
ing efficacy, that "all creatures in Heaven, and on the 
earth, and under the earth," though they could only under- 
stand in part the depth of its profound and wondrous im- 
port, broke out spontaneously when they first heard it, in 
a resistless union of song and praise and rejoicing adoration 
(Rev. v, 13). Not only is He willing and able to save all, 
so that not any shall perish, and to set forth the means of 
doing it— His Son, who is His "Word"— but in Isaiah's 
prophetic declaration He assures us that He will succeed. 
Speaking of Christ and the success of His redemption, he 
says: "so shall My word be that goeth out of My mouth; 
it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish 
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto 
I sent it." (Isaiah lv, 11). 

We reserve for a future chapter the display of the infi- 
nite moral miracles wrought by this provision (chap, iii, 
Part ii). We think it will then appear that it has removed 
forever the inherent impossibility of controlling, even by 



SIN NOT NECESSARILY SELF -PERPETUATING. 99 

Divine coercion, the unruly will of sinful man; that it has 
made that possible through love, which God by power could 
not do; that it has shown in the infinitely glorious light 
that surrounds the eternal throne, that love is greater than 
power; and that though man's will cannot be coerced, yet 
that an influence stronger than the determined will shall 
bring it, sooner or later, either in this world or the next, 
after needful suffering, into willing subjection. We will 
then endeavor also to show more particularly how the 
scheme here set forth is fortified by Scripture. For the 
present we only add that on this view the otherwise insolu- 
ble difficulty which has perplexed the ages is removed, 
and the existence of sin and evil becomes much more easy 
to reconcile on reason, with the wisdom and love of God. 
Given the doctrine, that the Divine punishments are reform- 
atory, not vindictive, and the darkness is cleared up. Ignore 
this view, and in spite of faith, man's reason staggers and 
reels before the awful gloom. 



PART II. 



THE PROBLEM OF EVIL CAPABLE OF SOLUTION ON 
THE BASIS OF A FUTURE PUNISHMENT, NOT HOPE- 
LESS, BUT REFORMATORY. 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. 103 



CHAPTER I. 

THE MINISTRY OF SORROW — AND HEREIN, OF THE "ANGER " OF 
GOD, HIS a WRATH," HIS "VENGEANCE." 

IN this investigation we include in the term "sorrow" 
the effects of all those trials that crowd our mortal 
career — whether they be weaknesses of any kind, disap- 
pointments, losses, bereavements, slanders, treacheries, be- 
trayals, temptations, or any other form of what we call 
evil. And we do this in accordance with that pathetic de- 
scription of our Divine Master, by which He is presented to 
us as the " Man of Sorrows " (Isaiah liii, 3) — one, thank 
God, who has experienced all our trials and temptations, 
and can therefore be " touched with a feeling of our in- 
firmities" (Heb. iv, 15). 

Before proceeding however to consider the ministry of 
sorrow, let us endeavor, as preparatory thereto, to realize 
as well as we can how God feels toward us. 

Almost all Scripture truth is conveyed to us in para- 
doxes, or seeming contradictions. This is probably because 
truth is rarely to be found in extreme statements, and can 
rarely be defined fully by a single term or phrase, but is 
the resultant of divers and diverse principles. Man is 
greatly benefited by a diligent search for this resultant 
among adverse or conflicting statements, and the exercise 
and discipline he derives from that search is a part, and 
an important part, of the trying and proving which a pro- 
bationary state implies. Especially is this true of all the 
attributes of Deity, which, in their direct conception or de- 



104 THE DEATH OF DEATH* 

finition, are incommunicable to the limited and incompe- 
tent mind of man. It has already been said that human 
language, through which the great body of truth is con- 
veyed to us, is, like the human mind, imperfect and finite; 
and cannot be made even by Divine power the vehicle of 
infinite truth — for that this would be to work a contradic- 
tion, of which God is incapable. Such a work is not the 
subject of power, and if it were, it would be abhorrent to 
the God of truth. 

But apparent contradictions — apparent, because they 
present the opposite sides of the same thing — are the only 
vehicles of that measure of infinite truth which is com- 
municable to us. Almost all the strife of tongues among 
those who accept the same Scriptures as the Word of God, 
arises from an exclusive gaze by the one or the other upon 
one of the manifold sides of truth, which prevents him 
from drawing this resultant, and thus seeing the whole 
truth. What but this causes the unending logomachy be- 
tween those who assert man's free agency without due re- 
gard to the Divine Sovereignty; and those who assert the 
Divine Sovereignty without due regard to man's free 
agency — between those who exalt faith at the expense of 
works, and those who applaud works at the .expense of 
faith? 

We have many examples in Scripture of the apparent 
contradiction above referred to; both in single texts, and 
in groups of texts. Dr. Bledsoe expounds for us a text of 
the first class, in harmony with his demonstration of the 
freedom of the will (Theodicy p. 175, and elsewhere), and 
proves that except on that demonstration, its apparent con- 
tradiction cannot be explained — " Work out your own sal- 
vation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh 
in you to will and to do of His good pleasure" — or because 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. 105 

of his favor towards you — (Phil, ii, 12, 13). It is surely, 
at first sight, a strange reason that is assigned for our 
painful efforts, that God may and does accomplish the end 
for us. But when, by the light of the torch held up for 
us, we learn that God works alone in the two passive 
faculties of the mind, viz: the "intelligence" and the "sen- 
sibility" (Theodicy p. 132) — or the apprehension and the 
desire — while man works in the will, then there is beauti- 
ful harmony, instead of contradiction in the text. Of the 
other class — groups of texts apparently in conflict with 
each other — there are many examples in the Scripture. 

Take one class. In Mai. iii, 6, it is said, "I am the Lord, 
I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." 
In Heb. xiii, 8, Paul, speaking of our Lord in his Divine 
character, says of Him: "Jesus Christ, the same yester- 
day, to-day and forever." And yet, in Genesis vi, 6, it is 
said of the unchangeable and unerring God, "it repented 
the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved 
Him at His heart." Again, many texts tell us of the terrible 
anger of the Lord, of His being angry with the wicked 
every day, of His fierce wrath, of His burning vengeance. 
It is spoken of as a consuming fire, as abiding on the sin- 
ner. His vengeance is said to be poured out upon them ; 
and after every figure is exhausted, the question is asked — 
" Who can stand before his indignation, and who can abide 
in the fierceness of his anger?" On the other hand, we 
are assured that His wrath endureth but a moment; that 
He is long-suffering, offender pity and compassion, and will 
not keep His anger forever; that He knoweth our frame and 
remembereth that we are but dust; that He will not "con- 
tend forever," neither be "always wroth," for that if He 
should do so, the "spirit should fail" before Him and "the 
souls which He had made" would cease to be. Therefore 



106 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

He urges contrition, and promises to abide with the humble 
to revive them. He assures us that He is the Father of all, 
even though as miserable sinners we have ruined our- 
selves; and that so pitifully does He regard us, even while 
we are rebelling against Him, and pouring contempt on 
all His love, that He provides for us, even in anticipation, 
by the sacrifice of Christ; and is not willing that any of us 
should perish, but that all of us should come to Him and 
be saved. 

Now all these last mentioned things are utterly incon- 
sistent with any idea of anger, wrath, vengeance, in the 
ordinary sense, towards His miserable creatures. So that 
we may feel sure that such terms do not represent, in that 
ordinary sense, the Divine feelings, but are an accommo- 
dation to the human mode of viewing things — an attempt 
to convey measurably to our minds an idea of the Divine 
emotions which are incommunicable to us in their real 
condition. It is as if God said to us — "you cannot under- 
stand Me, 'for My thoughts are not as your thoughts 
neither are your ways My ways' " (Isaiah lv, 8), but I in- 
tend by these words to convey to you some notion of My 
horror of sin; and in order that I may do so in such a 
way that you can faintly understand it, I say to you that 
if I were a man I should be fiercely angry with him that 
committed it, should hate him, should burn with 
wrath against him, and should wreak my vengeance on 
him. In illustration of this interpretation, let us take the 
cases of Pharoah and the Jews. In Exodus iv, 21, it is 
said: "And the Lord said unto Moses, when thou goest 
to return into Egypt, see that thou doest all these wonders 
before Pharoah which I have put in thy hand: but I will 
harden his heart that he shall not let the people go." It 
is afterwards stated that IJe did harden his heart. In Isaiah 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW*. lOf 

vi, 10, God is represented as saying to His prophet of the 
Jews, "make the heart of this people fat, and make their 
ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their 
eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their 
heart and convert and be healed." (See also xii, 40.) Here 
and in texts like these, God is represented as hardening 
the hearts of Pharoah and the Jews, that the one might 
incur fuller vengeance, and that the others might not re- 
pent and return to him. Now, if these various classes of 
texts are to be interpreted literally in their apparent sense, 
and not in the sense we have given, .then how repulsive is 
the picture presented to us! God, deliberately resolving 
in the councils of eternity, on the creation of man, gather- 
ing together the angels and arch-angels, and all the glorious 
hosts of Heaven to witness the stupendous act — one thril- 
ling with joy and praise all the animate and inanimate 
universe — and then, not long after, repenting that He had 
done it; grieving at His heart for the fatal act; burning with 
such rage against His erring creature, that in order that His 
vengeance against him might be the more complete, He 
actually blinds him and hardens him into deadlier sin. 
How our very souls revolt against such a hideous carica- 
ture of the Divine character as is presented by a literal in* 
terpretation of such words and texts ! We know in our 
inmost souls that our Father in Heaven is incapable of 
vacillation, of anger, of wrath, of vengeance in any such 
sense. Though all the angels and arch-angels in heaven 
should appear and tell us He is such an one, we would 
hold them in derision. We would only conclude that in- 
stead of angels of light, these lying spirits were in truth 
demons "come hot from hell," who had put on the livery 
of heaven to deceive us. It is the literal interpretation of 
such texts that points the blasphemy of the atheist, pro- 



lOg Tfifi DEATfl OF DEATfi. 

vokes the indifference of the worldly, and sorely tries the 
faith of the humble and sincere, but ignorant Christian. 
A true understanding of God's relations to us, as far as our 
feeble faculties will permit, will reveal Him to us as hating 
the sin, but loving and pitying and yearning over the sin- 
ner. St. Paul says "the wrath of God is revealed from 
heaven against (what? Ungodly men? No; but) all un- 
godliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in 
unrighteousness" (Rom. i, 18); but nevertheless His hand 
is stretched out to these unrighteous and ungodly men, 
every day of their lives beckoning and alluring them to 
return to Him. Oh, unrighteous man, "Return unto the 
Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity " (Hos. 
xiv, 1). Oh, sinner, "thou hast destroyed thyself, but in 
Me is thy help" (lb. xiii, 9). "Look unto Me, and be ye 
saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God, and there 
is none else" (Isaiah xlv, 22). " Wash ye, make you clean, 
put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes, 
cease to do evil, learn to do well" (lb. i, 16, 17). If ye 
will do this, then "like as a Father pityeth his children," 
so will I pity you, for I know your frame, I remember 
that you are dust (Ps. ciii, 13,14). "Come now, let us 
reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall 
be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they 
shall be as wool" (Isaiah i, 18); yea, "as far as the east is 
from the west," so far will I remove your transgressions 
from you (Ps. ciii, 12). " I will come unto you " and "make 
my abode" with you (John xiv, 23), and "I will be your 
God, and ye shall be My people " (Jer. vii, 22). Thus 
tenderly does God feel towards the vilest sinners that we 
can imagine; and therefore, whatever the "anger," the 
" wrath," the "vengeance" of God may be, these words are 
not to be taken literally, as if they were like similar emo- 



the Ministry of sorrow. 109 

tions in man, for they are not inconsistent with the contem- 
poraneous existence in the Divine bosom of exquisite love and 
tenderness for the ivorst offenders. 

We may now see how false is that vague idea — so com- 
mon, and yet so unworthy of the Divine character — that 
God hates the sinner, rather than the sin, and loves the 
righteous only. If so, which of us can He love? for " there 
is none righteous, no not one." On the contrary, the only 
hope of our race is that He loves us all — the vilest sinner 
that can be conceived as well as the greatest saints — who 
are confessedly great sinners. As a resultant of all the 
texts in regard to the love of God, we may say that there 
is a difference in the Divine emotions excited by the two 
classes. Towards the latter He feels, for Christ's sake, the 
love of approbation; towards the former He feels a love of 
pity and compassion. It is a glorious, an elevating and 
an inspiring truth, that illuminates the bright courts of 
Heaven, the dark valleys of earth, and even the gloomy 
portals of the grave, that God loves all His creatures — 
whether they be more or less, or not at all, worthy of it — 
with a yearning love, infinite and Divine, and that His 
love of approbation is ready for the vilest and most de- 
graded the instant that he is ready to accept this "gift of 
God," through Jesus Christ our Lord, his almoner. 

We assume, then, as needing no further illustration, that 
such emotions as those of "anger," "wrath," "vengeance," 
in the ordinary sense, do not abide in the bosom of our 
Father in heaven ; and that such terms are merely designed 
to convey to us an idea of God's horror and detestation of 
sin, as disturbing the harmony of His creation, and sepa- 
rating His creature from the u life of God " — his Creator. 

We are now prepared intelligently to consider our sub- 
ject, which we hope to display as a great mercy, demanding 
our gratitude to the giver of all good things. 



HO TfiE DEATH OF DEATH. 

How then does the Divine hatred of sin, combined with 
His love and pity for the sinner, manifest itself in action ? 
Chiefly by that wonderful mystery of the sacrifice of Christ 
for the accomplishment of our restoration from sin. Here 
omnipotent power and ineffable love appear in an intense 
activity, wholly Divine. But they also manifest themselves 
in action in subordinate modes. It is these subordinate 
modes that constitute what we call " the ministry of sorrow." 

The necessity of this ministry grows out of the nature 
of our brief life, and its object — in its nature probational, 
in its object preparatory for a higher and more permanent 
existence. The Scriptures describe both the one and the 
other in countless texts. Our life is declared to be as grass, 
as the flower of the field, as a vapor, as a shadow, as a 
dream, as a handbreadth, as a swift boat or ship passing 
by, as a shepherd's tent to be struck soon, as a weaver's 
shuttle, as a pilgrimage in which we have no continuing 
city, as a school in which we are to be educated. The 
object of that life is declared to be that we may know God, 
and love and obey Him, that we may be accepted by Him, 
not only here where we are "pilgrims and strangers" (John 
xvii, 16), but in that " continuing city " which we seek, and 
which is "to come," at the end of our pilgrimage (Heb. 
xiii. 14). During that pilgrimage we are as children — not 
only as children, but really children — at school; where we 
have a diligent, faithful, and, if necessary, a severe school- 
master called "the Law of God," who by instruction, by 
penalties, by sorrows and by afflictions, is to bring us to 
Christ (Gal. iii, 25). He is to fit us to occupy, through 
grace, one of those " many mansions " (John xiv, 2) in that 
heavenly city, that "building of God," that "house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens " (2 Cor. v, 1), 
where we shall no longer need a school-master, but shall 
be perfect men in Christ (Col. i, 28). 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. Ill 

We cannot too often impress on our minds the fact that 
this life, this probation, this pilgrimage or whatever else 
we may call it, is really and literally a school — a traveling 
school like those of the scientists who take their pupils 
through our western wilderness to teach them natural his- 
tory practically, as well as theoretically. Its whole object 
is educational — to prepare us for a higher order of life — 
and compared with that object, our experiences of pleasure 
or pain by the way, sink into utter insignificance, except 
as they advance or retard it. But what a school! what an 
infinite variety of tempers and dispositions and aspirations 
in its scholars! This infinite variety proves it to be God's 
school. 

God then is our school-master, and he teaches us not like 
a salaried teacher, however kind and faithful he may be; 
but as a tender father who instructs his children from the 
love of them; and who administers needful discipline not 
the less strictly, but the more so because of that very love 
— " For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth 
every son whom He receiveth " (Heb. xii, 6). And He loves 
us all, so that in chastening us, He deals with all of us "as 
with sons, for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth 
not? But if we be without chastening, whereof all are 
partakers, then are we bastards and not sons" (lb. 7, 8). 

Now the great impediment with us all in the way of our 
education for a higher state of existence is, that we want 
to build our "continuing city" here. The visible and tan- 
gible things around us seem to us more real than the objects 
and employments of that "house not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens." Like children of smaller growth, 
we find it hard to realize that the future is more important 
than the present, and that the present is always best em- 
ployed in preparing for the future. But we must learn this 



112 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

lesson before we can fulfill the end of our existence, and 
our kind Father, if He finds us set in this way, will so deal 
with us as to persuade us to look for that which is "to come." 
He permits us indeed to build our houses and cities here, 
but they must not be " continuing" ones — they must only 
be tabernacles — and then w T e may enjoy them for a shorter 
or longer period, or during all our pupilage, as may be best 
for us, provided they are built as types of the heavenly 
buildings, and have some resemblance to the house and 
city "not made with hands." But if they have not that 
resemblance, they must come down, however much it may 
grieve us ; for it is better for us to suffer a brief sorrow, than 
to endure a longer woe, before the lesson is learned. 

And what houses we do build ! 

One builds for himself and family, along the pilgrim 
path, a tabernacle on the pattern of the heavenly home, 
and there long enjoys the highest happiness his pilgrim 
state admits. But gradually idols appear in every apart- 
ment of this tabernacle; and, strange to tell, the pilgrims do 
not recognize their presence — for do they not daily fall down 
before the Father of all and acknowledge Him alone to be 
their Father and their God? But, alas! self-deceivers as 
we are — the w T ife and children have become idols to the 
father, the husband and children have become idols to the 
wife, and father and mother, or brothers or sisters have 
become idols to the children — and they know it not! 

Another builds for his household a similar tabernacle. 
He models it on the house not made with hands. He care- 
fully frames it as a type, a memorial of the heavenly home; 
and sweet flowers spring up around it, of joy, and peace, 
and resignation to the Father's will, even though He should 
remove this sweet tabernacle, and send them again to a 



THF MINISTRY OF SORROW. 113 

tent by the wayside. Their peace and joy are great — too 
great, for alas ! they soon become " exalted above measure," 
and before they know it, the type has become more en- 
gaging than the thing typified; the shadow has usurped 
the place of the substance; they have forgotten that they 
are pilgrims, and have lived as though they were in a 
"continuing city." The whole tabernacle has become an 
idol, and perchance they know it not. 

Another bethinks him, " I too will build a tabernacle 
along the pilgrim path; but my tabernacle shall surpass 
all others. It shall be crowned with a pillar of fame, in 
law, in medicine, in literature, in science, in art, or in poli- 
tics; so that my brother pilgrims, as they stream along, 
shall pause awhile and admire it. They shall say ' behold 
how this tabernacle dwarfs all others,' and they shall long 
talk of its glory — yea, and ages after my pilgrimage is 
over, they shall pause — for it shall remain — and my name 
shall be linked with it. It shall indeed be built on the 
pattern of the heavenly building; but I will decorate it 
with grand legends of great deeds. I will hang banners 
from every point, and it shall stand as a house of glory to 
my Father's name — and to mine. He will be honored in it, 
for it will give me great influence over my brother pil- 
grims; and I will exert that influence for their good, and 
His glory, and doing this I may rightly reap great glory for 
myself" But when this tabernacle of fame is completed, 
or in a fair way to be completed — spreading out its wings 
and courts on every side — it has become in truth a strong 
tower instead of a tabernacle, and the poor pilgrim thinks 
it is a "continuing city," and forgets that he is looking for 
a city "to come." 

Another thinks to build a tabernacle which shall shine, 
like a palace, with gems of gold and precious stones. He 



114 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

secures from his fellow pilgrims all that he can get, by- 
whatever lawful means, whether of gold, or silver, or dia- 
monds, or pearls, or even inferior things. Wealth is a 
great blessing, he thinks, if it is properly used ; and he 
will use it properly, not merely for himself, but for the 
benefit of his fellow pilgrims. He will instruct the igno- 
rant, he will shelter the weary and storm-beaten, he will 
clothe the naked, feed the hungry, comfort the desolate, 
heal the wounded, bind up the broken-hearted, pour in 
the oil of joy for mourning, and bestow the garments of 
praise for the spirit of heaviness. His tabernacle shall be 
a resting-place and a home for all who need, for the 
Father's sake — and though he means to enjoy it himself, 
yet his chief joy will be that he is acting as a steward, an 
almoner of the bounties of the common Father, towards 
all his needy children on their weary pilgrimage. He re- 
solves that his tabernacle shall be pre-eminently useful 
and beautiful, if he can make it so. And so he builds. 
But his plans grow as he proceeds. The building is never 
complete — room is added to room, hall to hall. His abun- 
dant gold and silver is always expended as fast as received 
in additions and improvements. His precious stones are 
all consumed as fast as they are gathered, in filling up on 
mosaic tablets — in letters of diamonds and pearls and 
rubies and agates, and many others — texts and holy 
legends from the pilgrim's roll, descriptive of the duty and 
the glory of his benevolent plans. So, when the weary, 
the poor, the friendless and suffering pilgrims who are 
passing by call in for relief, allured by the invitation on 
these tablets, there is no shelter, for the whole house is 
filled with the debris of the building; there is no gold with 
which their wants could be supplied elsewhere, for it is all 
needed to complete the tabernacle. They must pass on 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. 115 

with kind promises to be fulfilled at a " convenient season," 
or "when all things are ready." In process of time the 
building, though incomplete — for it will never be finished — 
blazes with such beauty, allures with such irresistible fas- 
cinations, that the pilgrim is bewildered by it. By reason 
of the "deceitfulness of riches" (Matt, xiii, 22) he is so 
blinded as to think this gaudy tabernacle more beautiful 
and more desirable than any building can be that is yet 
"to come." And so he dreads the idea of resuming his 
pilgrimage, and shrinks from what he considers worse than 
death — a parting from his earthly tabernacle, in order to 
reach the "continuing city." 

Other pilgrims — generally of the younger sort — reason 
with themselves that the Father did not mean their pil- 
grimage to be dull and dreary; that He intended them to 
enjoy all lawful pleasures, and to be as happy as they can 
be on such a journey. And they reason well, for surely 
they correctly state His gracious will. And so they com- 
bine, and build a fairy tabernacle. They cement its walls 
with bouyant and vigorous health. They adorn it with airy 
pillars, and arches, and verandahs, and balconies. They 
decorate it with the buds and blossoms of spring, with 
wreaths of flowers and wild grasses, and autumn leaves, 
and ivy, and mistletoe. They surround it with an atmos- 
phere of illusions, which echoes also with songs and dances, 
and rippling laughter, and merry jests, and graceful move- 
ments — and they call it the "temple of innocent pleas- 
ures." But they forget that moderation — the most diffi- 
cult thing for the young — must be the hand-maid of pleas- 
ure; that the admissible pleasures are only the pleasures of 
the way-side, or those to be found in tabernacles that con- 
sist with pilgrimage; and that even the joys that these af- 
ford cease to be innocent when they become excessive. 



116 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

They forget that permanent tabernacles of pleasure are 
unlawful, since they make their occupants reluctant to 
turn towards the pilgrim path, and hide from their eyes 
the end of their pilgrimage, and the building "to come." 
And so, in the mad dance of pleasures no longer innocent, 
they find their "continuing city " — their paradise — at least 
they seek no other. 

But time would fail to tell of all the different kinds of 
tabernacles, towers, palaces, pleasure houses, chapels of 
ease, gardens of delight, mountains of strength, and the 
many other varieties of buildings that these pilgrim schol- 
ars erect — all interfering more or less with the object of 
their journey. We have given, by way of example, a few 
of the better sort. All these and many other kinds are 
built also by others, who commence, not with the good 
purposes of those above mentioned, and who forget more 
or less in building the pilgrimage, its end, and the "house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Others 
still there are, who not only forget as do these last, but 
who — each one of them — chooses to build his "continuing 
city" here, and who so builds as to obstruct and even to 
ensnare others. 

Now, our kind and tender Father, our wise school- 
master, sees and hears all this. He sees that His scholars 
are not learning the needful lessons He has prescribed, and 
He "visits" them for these things (Jer. v, 9), wielding the 
penalties of the broken law. At His approach the idols in 
the tabernacle fall down shattered; the tabernacles that 
were themselves idols crumble; the pillars of fame either 
topple over with a tremendous crash, or stand revealed in 
new characters as pillars of reproach or infamy; the tap- 
estries and gold and precious stones of the palaces of 
wealth are consumed by moth and rust, or dissolved by 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. 117 

self-developed fires, and the palaces themselves become 
shapeless and blackened ruins; the airy temples of pleas- 
ure lose the cement of their walls, and tumble into hideous 
wrecks, or else flee away like visions, leaving behind only 
the ashes of departed joys; the chapels of ease are crushed; 
the gardens of delight are withered; the mountains of 
strength are throw T n down. 

Or, if any of these remain as before, it is only because 
the lesson designed to be taught may be better impressed 
on some by permitting them to stand and prove their 
utter hollowness, even when fully tested. We have an 
illustration of the last case in the instance of a pilgrim 
mentioned by Gibbon, the historian, of the "decline and 
fall" of a city sometimes called "eternal." He says "our 
imagination is dazzled by the splendid" magnificence of 
Abdalrahman, one of the Saracen monarchs in Spain. He 
spent on his palace and gardens of Zehra, near Cordova, 
constructed "in honor of his favorite Sultana," fifteen mil- 
lions of money and "twenty- five years" of time. The 
buildings were "sustained and adorned by twelve hundred 
columns of marble" from Spain, Africa, Greece and Italy. 
The audience hall was "incrusted with pearls and gold." 
The whole was designed and decorated by the "artists of 
Constantinople, the most skillful architects and sculptors 
of the age." His body-guard was composed of "twelve 
thousand horse, whose belts and scimitars were studded 
with gold." The following testimony was left by this 
princely pilgrim at his departure: "I have now reigned 
about fifty years in victory or in peace; beloved by my 
subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my 
allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure have waited 
on my call, nor does any earthly pleasure seem to have 
been wanting to my felicity. In this situation I have dili- 
gently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness 



118 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

which have fallen to my lot. They amount to fourteen. Oh, 
man, place not thy confidence in this present world!" 

Take a second case — that of a nobler pilgrim, a great 
and successful statesman and author. In the preface to 
M. Guizot's book, " Christianity viewed in relation to the pre- 
sent state of society and opinion" he says: "In the course of 
my long life I have seen much and done somewhat. I 
have taken part in the world's affairs. I have quitted it, 
and am no longer anything more than a spectator. For 
twenty years I have been essaying my tomb. I have gone 
down into it living, and have made no effort to issue forth 
again. Not only have I experience of the world, but noth- 
ing attaches me to it. Could I still be of any service to 
the two great causes, in my eyes but one — the cause of 
Christian faith in men's souls and the cause of political 
liberty in my country, I should await with thankfulness 
in the bosom of my seclusion the dawn of that eternal day 
which ' fools call death,' says Petrarch." 

That sweet poet of the South, the late John R. Thomp- 
son, translated the touching poem "Carcassonne" from 
the French of Gustave Nadaud. It tells of an old man 
who had lived all his life within three leagues of the beau- 
tiful, and to him wonderful, city of Carcassonne. His 
highest earthly ambition was to visit this city. The hope 
of doing so some happy day beguiled the tedium of his 
monotonous and life-long labors; but his simple hopes 
were ever disappointed by the exactions of poverty and 
the necessity of daily toil for daily necessaries. At last, 
in old age, he was invited by a stranger to go with him on 
this journey, the object of his life-long wishes. Next day 
they started — 

" But * * * * half way on 
The old man died upon the road : 
He never gazed on Carcassonne. 
Each mortal has Carcassonne ! " 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. H9 

So, in one way or another, whether by loss and bereave- 
ment, by disappointment in possession, or by vain hopes 
of posession, the discipline is the same. 

And then there is sorrow along the pilgrim path — the 
mourning of bereaved husbands and fathers — the wails of 
widows and children — the tears of faded hopes — the silent 
misery of disappointment — and the rebellious though im- 
potent cries of rage and despair. All these discordant 
sounds proclaim to those who interpret them rightly that 
our tender Father in Heaven, our gracious and wise School- 
master, is rebuking us, His children; is disciplining up, 
his scholars, just in the same way (but with infinitely more 
of wisdom and love) that our earthly fathers act. They 
proclaim that He who "is love" is exhibiting that love 
even to the worst of us. They proclaim that the giver of 
all good things has brought to us a precious gift — the 
cl ministry of sorrow." He designs that ministry to reprove, 
exhort, reform and bless us; to bring us back from our 
heedless and wayward thoughtlessness and forgetfulness ; 
to start us anew on our pilgrim way, with knowledge based 
on experience now, that here we "have no continuing 
city, but seek one to come." 

But suppose all these means fail to teach the needful 
lesson during this whole pilgrimage; suppose the scholars 
will not learn what their Father would have them learn, 
what will that wise and loving Father do then? 

Now the advocates of the traditional dogma — those who 
hold that there is only one pilgrimage or probation — can- 
not answer this question consistently with the holiness of 
God. On their theory these sorrows are evil and only evil 
to all those who are not reformed by them, for they are 
only a foretaste of exquisite and hopeless pangs for the 
great majority. The existence of evil in the world is with 



120 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

them an awful mystery — a contradiction of the love and 
power of God, the solution of which they do not attempt, 
because from their stand-point it is insoluble; and which 
they remit to a vague faith, that what they do not now 
understand to be just will be shown to be so hereafter. 

On our theory these evils are shown to be good and only 
good to all; for they are brought by God out of sin, the 
only real evil in the world (and one which God could not 
prevent without a violation of man's nature or His own) 
for the beneficent end of ultimate restoration. 

The figure most often employed in the pilgrim's roll, to 
instruct us of the Divine Father's mind towards us, is that 
of earthly parentage. It is the chosen type — chosen by 
the Divine Father Himself — as most fitting to inform us of 
His feelings and purposes towards us. If an earthly 
father, though himself evil, shall yet through love do so 
and so for his children, in the midst of their negligence, 
their obstinacy, and even their rebellion, then "how much 
more shall your Father which is in heaven" do so? (Matt, 
vii, 11). Let us take then this golden thread of truth, and 
like him who explored the labyrinth of old, follow the 
clew through all doubts and difficulties. 

Now what would an earthly father — such an one as we 
call good and wise — do with a son at school who neglected 
his studies or despised learning, or resisted the authority 
of his teacher? There can be but one answer to such a 
question. He would bear with him, and exhort and per- 
suade and allure him to a better way, as long as forbear- 
ance presented any hope of his reformation. If he found 
that his goodness did not lead him to repentance (Rom. ii, 
4), then he would resort to sterner measures, not from a 
feeling of vengeance, but of love, and for the good of his 
child. He would now subject him to all the discipline 
admissible in that school. 



?He ministry oP sorrow. 121 

But suppose he still remains incorrigible through it all — 
Will he then cast him off and turn his back on him for- 
ever? Oh ! no, no, even human love can stand such a test 
as that. Even human love will yearn with parental stead- 
fastness over the son of its loins. It will abate no jot of 
heart or hope. This wise, loving father will make another 
and another effort for the welfare of his erring boy. He 
will place him in another school, where there is severer dis- 
cipline, and exhaust there all the means which "goodness 
and severity" (Rom. xi, 22) can employ for his reforma- 
tion. 

If he yet fails to bring him to himself, and to induce 
him to exert his powers in those studies which may fit 
him to fill an elevated sphere in life, does he then abandon 
him? No good or wise earthly father could do so. No, if 
he cannot induce him to fit himself for a high rank in his 
future life, he will do for him the best that remains for him 
to do — he will endeavor, at least, to fit him for usefulness 
in a lower sphere. He will subject him to still greater dis- 
cipline. He will apprentice him to a taskmaster, where 
work must be done, or still greater severity must be em- 
ployed. He will put him at the work-bench, at the bel- 
lows, at the anvil. 

But if at last this fails; if the boy is utterly incorrigi- 
ble; if he deserts the post to which he has been assigned; 
if now looking on the needful discipline to which his 
father has subjected him as unkind and unjust, he resigns 
himself to his own devices, mocks at his father, and de- 
spising him and his counsels, abandons his home and flies 
to some distant point, where, without restraint, he can 
revel in iniquity and shame, — if he does all this and much 
more, does that father desert him at last? God forbid! 
That wretched but still loved child oppresses his thoughts 
6 



122 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

by day and by night. All human means being exhausted, 
he throws himself on the Divine aid entirely. He bears 
that wanderer on his groans and prayers up to Him who 
is able to help. As long as life lasts, God shall hear of 
him ceaselessly, from lips that plead his cause, and be- 
seech that the rod may not fall on him to condemn and 
destroy, but to arrest and amend him. That father will 
never give up that boy, though all hell should gape for 
him. Against "principalities, and powers, and the rulers 
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness 
in heavenly places" (Eph. vi, 12), he will oppose in that 
dear, ruined boy's behalf the seven-fold shield of prayer, 
all radiant with undying hope in God. 

In what we have set down as to the feelings and conduct 
of a wise and good earthly father, we are sure nothing has 
been overstated. That conduct, as above set forth, com- 
mends itself to our sense of love and mercy and justice ; 
and in it we have, on the infallible word of our Divine 
Father himself, an exact example in kind, though infinitely 
lower in degree, of his feelings and conduct towards the 
worst, the most obstinate and the most rebellious of us all. 
If the earthly father does habitually give to his erring and 
ungrateful children these good gifts of love and forbearance 
and fidelity to the end; if he never abandons the lost child 
while life endures, "hoiv much more" shall our "Father 
which is in heaven " give the good gift of His " Holy Spirit 
to them that ask Him" (Luke xi, 13), even to the end of 
life, whether here or hereafter? The earthly father's life is 
limited, but his love pervades the whole of it. The heav- 
enly Father's life is infinite; but He makes the earthly and 
finite life of the earthly father the type of His eternal re- 
lation toward us; and His love to us pervades His eternal 
life just as the earthly love pervades the earthly life — only 
" how much more! " If God's relation to us be in truth that 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW. 123 

of a father, we may rest assured that He will never abandon 
us utterly. It would be monstrous to suppose that while 
human love endures many probational trials of the erring 
child, and never surrenders him, God's patience should be 
exhausted by one brief probation. Oh no ! if one of God's 
children continues to resist His instructions to the end of 
this brief probation, another and severer one awaits him; 
but Ood will never give him up finally: "for the Lord will 
not cast off forever: but though He cause grief, yet will He 
have compassion, according to the multitude of His mer- 
cies. For He doth not afflict willingly (in the Hebrew 
'from His heart'), nor grieve the children of men" (Lam. 
iii, 31, 33). "Fear thou not, Jacob my servant, saith 
the Lord. * * * I will not make a full end of thee, but 
correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly 
unpunished" (Jer. xlvi, 28). These declarations were 
made to a people who had defied God grossly, and by the 
mouth of the very prophet who was sent to tell of their 
terrible overthrow as a people. God will not desert them 
finally for the sake of Abraham, whose seed they were after 
the flesh; nor will he finally desert us, for the sake of 
Christ, who took upon Him our flesh, that He might save 
us miserable sinners. 

We are warranted by this glorious type of the fatherhood 
of God, in the belief that the infinite resources of redeem- 
ing love will operate upon his erring children till reforma- 
tion is attained, either here or hereafter, whatever sorrow- 
ful experiences must first be endured. They will indeed 
be bitter, but they will be blessed; for oh ! benign "ministry 
of sorrow," thou art the hand-maid of eternal parental 
love. Thou art a merciful gift from God our Father. Thy 
robes indeed are stained with blood, but it is redeeming 
blood — for even the "son of man" was made "perfect 
through sufferings" (Heb. ii, 10) f 



124 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MINISTRY OF SORROW — CONTINUED — AND ^HEREIN, OF IN- 
EQUALITIES OF FORTUNE, OF SPIRITUAL OPPORTUNITIES, 
AND OF SPIRITUAL SUSCEPTIBILITIES. 

HAVING now considered the general character of the 
Divine discipline, let us descend into particulars. 

In that wonderful book of Job we have a detailed exam- 
ple of God's dealings with the individual sinner, such as is 
nowhere else to be found in Scripture, although in entire 
harmony with what we elsewhere read therein. Ordinarily 
we are only permitted to see the execution of God's work; 
but here the veil hanging between us and the unseen world 
is lifted sufficiently to enable us to see in detail the plan- 
ning of it in a particular instance. The great worker Him- 
self vouchsafes that we may see not only His completed 
work, but Himself at work upon it. 

It appears that there was a day when the "sons of God 
came to present themselves before the Lord," and that 
Satan "came also among them" (Job i, 6). It seems 
strange to us that Satan should have been "among them." 
Theologians have thought, indeed, that Satan had free ac- 
cess to the heavenly places, till after the manifestation (or 
the temptation) of our Lord; but that then took place that 
"war in heaven," in which "Michael and his angels fought 
against the dragon (or the Devil), and the dragon fought 
and his angels, but prevailed not" (Rev. xii, 7); and that 
since that time neither he nor his angels have had such 
access — for it is added in the eighth verse, "neither was 



THE MINISTKY OF SORROW — CONTINUED. 125 

their place found any more in heaven." They may be 
right as to their theory and their dates, but whether so or 
not it is not material to our investigation to enquire; nor 
to enquire whether the book of Job is a record of events 
which actually occurred, or an allegory. In either case 
the teaching is the same. 

When Satan thus appeared before God, he drew from 
him a statement that he had been diligent in his business ; 
he had been "going to and fro in the earth," and "walking 
up and down in it" (lb. i, 7)— not idly we may be sure; 
and God, assuming that he had been engaged in his fell 
work, asks him "hast thou considered my servant Job, 
that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an 
upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?" 
(lb. 8). Job was perfect, not in an absolute, but in a re- 
lative sense; that is, he was perfect in external conduct, 
and in spiritual excellence so far as Satan could see. That 
the word is used in this sense appears by the sequel. Now, 
doubtless Satan had expended on Job all his efforts, and 
he seems to have despaired of getting him into his power, 
for he does not deny the statement of Job's perfection. 
His subtlety was great, but he was not omniscient, and 
therefore he could not see, as God did, the real weakness 
and imperfection that lay hidden down in the bottom of 
Job's heart — hidden from himself as well as Satan. Job's 
sin was one very common with those who "fear God and 
eschew evil" — self righteousness — and it is the nature of that 
sin that we who commit it are deceived by it, so that we 
are unconscious of it. 

But Satan made the mistake of supposing that Job's 
righteousness was only the complacency of him whose 
every want had been supplied. In answer therefore to 
what he supposed a taunt from God, as if belittleing his 



126 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

power, he charges that Job's invulnerability was due not 
to his lack of skill, but to the fact that God had so hedged 
him about as to prevent access to him ; and he declares 
that if God will remove this hedge, so that he may strike 
down Job's prosperity and destroy all his earthly interests, 
he will curse God to his face. The permission was given, 
and crash after crash fell on Job's earthly life, removing 
houses, flocks, herds, wealth and children, till nothing re- 
mained of his fair possessions but utter wrecks and blasted 
prospects, of which an unworthy wife, who in her rage 
advised him to "curse God and die," was the fitting com- 
plement. But grand old Job stood sublimely erect amidst 
the ruins, and poured into the ear that is ever open to the 
cries of distress, that triumphant miserere which with 
pathetic melody has soothed and comforted humbled and 
sorrowing hearts through all the centuries since its utter- 
ance: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and 
naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave and the Lord 
bath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord" (lb. 
21). Baffled and rebuked, the tempter left him. 

Again there was a day when the sons of God presented 
themselves to the Lord, and again Satan was among them. 
Sore at his last defeat, he makes no allusion to it when 
again asked about Job's perfection, but abruptly says, 
"skin for skin; yea, all that a man hath will he give for 
his life (or his person) ; put forth thine hand now and 
touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy 
face" (lb. ii, 4, 5). He is conscious of his former mistake 
and now searches Job more deeply. Surely he thinks he 
will not endure all things — his love of God cannot be so 
unselfish, so sublime as to endure the worst that may be- 
fall him. Full liberty is given him to do with Job as he 
pleases, so that he spare his life. He loses not a moment's 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW — CONTINUED. 127 

time; he is impatient for Job's ruin and his own revenge. 
He "went forth from the presence of the Lord," and smote 
Job with such sore bodily disease and suffering, that he 
could find no better mitigation of his pain than to sit in 
ashes. He was so changed in appearance that three out 
of the four who, alone of all his former friends, visited 
him, did not know him till they came near to him ; and 
then, softened by pity, they wept for him (lb. 12). His 
"brethren," his "kinsfolk," most of his "familiar friends," 
his "acquaintance," his "maids" and "servants," and his 
unworthy wife, deserted one who had lost his wealth and 
presented a disgusting appearance (lb. xix, 13-17). He 
was utterly desolate. Satan had shot his last terrible 
shaft, and it had found Job's heart. His integrity to God 
trembled in the balance, but though he held that firm, 
and so disappointed and humiliated Satan again, yet he 
fell in another way. Satan's arrow searched in Job's 
heart in vain for rebellion against God, but found a con- 
genial resting place in his self-righteousness; and there it 
rankled till Job's eyes were opened. 

We read that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, three of the 
four friends who still adhered to him, charged him over 
and over again with self-righteousness. Though God after- 
wards rebuked them, because, said He, "ye have not 
spoken of Me, the thing that is right" (lb. xlii, 7); yet 
their charge against Job was true; for after they had 
ceased to answer him, "because he was righteous in his 
own eyes" (lb. xxxii, 1), Elihu, his fourth friend, whose 
counsel God seems to have approved, charges him with 
justifying "himself rather than God" (lb. 2), and with 
saying, "I am clean, without transgression, I am innocent; 
neither is there iniquity in me" (lb. xxxiii, 9); "I am 
righteous, and God hath taken away my judgment" (lb. 



128 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

xxxiv, 5). Under Elihu's rebuke Job was dumb. We 
are aware that many critics regard Elihu's part in this nar- 
rative as an interpolation by a later hand. We need not 
enter into this controversy. Whether it be so or not, Job's 
assertion of his righteousness and his questioning of God 
for rewarding it with affliction is indisputable. God Him- 
self afterwards charges him with it. Howbeit, Job now, 
for the first time, begins to see his error. He gradually 
sees that all this time, down in his heart of hearts, he has 
been pluming himself on his excellence; that he has been 
so possessed of the idea that his prosperity was a reward 
for his righteousness, instead of a free and unmerited gift 
of God, that he has been actually unconscious of its false- 
hood and grossness. Ah ! how some of us should know 
the feeling ! If we are greatly prosperous ; if we have made 
some attainments in the gifts of grace, in the love of God, 
how we begin to plume ourselves ! to fancy that we are 
favorites of heaven because we are so good — in fact, so 
much better than others. And then we need the rod ; then 
we may look out for a fall; then Satan will be sure to trip 
us. Even St. Paul was in danger of being "exalted be- 
yond measure" by peculiar privileges, and like Job, had 
to have a "thorn in his flesh," to keep him mindful of his 
nothingness in the comparison with God (2 Cor. xii, 7). 

And so Job was now thoroughly humbled, and then the 
time of mercy had come for him. Then God, who "for- 
getteth not the cry [of the humble" (Ps. ix, 12), and who 
loves and dwells with him that is of an humble and con- 
trite spirit" (Isaiah lvii, 15), made manifest to him His 
gracious presence. He shows him his utter weakness and 
the folly of his past opinions in such plain terms, as to 
impress the lesson on him forever afterwards — " Who is this 
that darkeneth counsel by words without wisdom? Gird 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW — CONTINUED. 129 

up now thy loins like a man, and answer thou me. Where 
wast thou when /laid the foundations of the earth?" (Job 
xxxviii, 2, 4). " Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty, 
instruct him? He that reproveth God let him answer it. 
Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? Wilt thou con- 
demn Me that thou may est be righteous?" (lb. xl, 8). 

At last Job is free from his secret sin. He has seen it, 
repented of it and now confesses it. "Out of weakness, 
now made strong" (Heb. xi, 34), he acknowledges that he 
had uttered things that he understood not, but rejoices that 
he has also learned truths about himself and God, which 
he never knew before. And then, grand in humility and 
faith, he pours out his heart before Him — "I have heard 
of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth 
Thee; wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and 
ashes" (Job xlii, 5, 6). 

Let us endeavor to draw from this wonderful narrative 
the lessons taught by it. 

First. We see that God works, not only in directing the 
affairs of nations, of the world or of the universe; but 
that He works personally and as grandly in the affairs of 
individuals — just as nature discloses as wonderful and as 
perfect a work on infinitesimal things, as upon things of 
inconceivable magnitudes. 

Second. We see also, that though God generally works by 
law, yet that He does not merely set in motion the gigantic 
machinery of an inflexible law, to work out its inexorable re- 
sults; but that He intervenes and satifies the law by new 
conditions. In human jurisprudence this adaptation of 
law to new conditions is called equity. So we may say that 
God's decisions and acts are not limited by the rigid con- 
ditions of law alone; but by the principles of equity, which, 
though it "follows the law," yet does that which law Qai}- 



130 THE DEATH OF DEATH* 

not do. The law had condemned Job for a sin indulged 
until he became unconscious of it. His condition, there- 
fore, was hopeless. But God specially intervenes. He 
opens Job's eyes by afflictions; and then his repentance 
disarms the law, or rather through grace fulfills it. It was 
equitable that an unconscious sin should be made conscious, 
before the sword of the law should finally fall. 

Third. We see that God does not thrust us out from His 
side, into the midst of hot temptations, with the stern com- 
mand alone, "do this, and thou shalt live; do that, and 
thou shalt die." Oh no, our Father in Heaven does far 
more than this. He employs every agency in heaven and 
earth for our safety; and if we fall, He employs every 
agency in heaven, earth and hell for our reformation. He 
avails Himself in Job's case of Satan's malevolence to 
wrest him finally and forever from his power. And in 
what a wonderful way He does it! He actually goads Satan, 
not once, but twice, into a renewal of his temptations. 
Now this seems a very strange thing, for it appears at first 
sight that God wills that Job shall be tempted to evil. On 
the other hand, we read, "Let no man say when he is 
tempted, 'I am tempted of God:' for God cannot be 
tempted with evil, neither (so) tempteth he any man; but 
every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own 
lusts and enticed" (James i, 13, 14). Here seems to be 
another of those apparent conflicts, to which we have al- 
ready referred. Let us endeavor to understand it. God 
indeed tempts no man to evil; but what is evil? Sirij and 
sin alone, is evil. All other such things as we call evil, are 
merely the consequences of sin; and are in truth good 
things, if by God's grace they arouse us from our sin. What 
then is sin? It is a condition of the heart. The outward 
act is not the sin, it is only the evidence of the sin. It is 



fHfi MINISTRY OF SORROW— CONTINUED. 131 

often the shame of the outward act which stimulates us to 
eradicate the sin from the heart. Now, Job was in a state 
of sin, which was so deeply hidden down in his heart from 
himself and others, that, for want of provocation, it did 
not manifest itself by any outward act, and so he did not 
see it. But now God comes and stimulates Satan to tempt 
Job — in order to make him sin? God forbid that we should 
say so ! no, but in order to develop in him an external 
manifestation of his inward sin, so that he might be con- 
vinced of it. Satan aimed to do something else, viz: to 
make Job curse God, and failed; but he did succeed in 
making Job do that which, putting the effect for the cause, 
we call sin, viz: to complain that God had not given his 
righteousness its just reward. His questioning of God was 
not the sin, but only the outward manifestation or evidence 
of his sin. 

We may learn from this, therefore, that though God does 
not tempt us " with evil," yet that it may be in accordance 
with His will that we should be tempted to outward acts, 
when they are only the evidences of our sin, and when the 
shame and misery they produce may lead us to see the sin 
in its true light, and to repent of it; for then these outward 
acts, though the fruits of evil, may have good effects. 

Though at first sight, therefore, God's commission to 
Satan to tempt Job seems strange, yet on closer examina- 
tion it appears not to be so. We must be careful to con- 
sider well what may seem strange in God's dealings with 
us — in accordance with St. Peter's warning that we are not 
to think it "strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try 
us as though some strange thing happened unto us, but to 
rejoice, inasmuch as we are partakers of Christ's sufferings" 
(1 Pet. iv, 12, 13). And this evidently refers to temptations 
rather than to bereavements or losses.. Of the former, St. 



132 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

Paul says u there hath no temptation taken you but such 
as is common to men; but God is faithful, and will not 
suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will 
with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you 
may be able to bear it" (1 Cor. x, 13). And He was thus 
faithful to Job; for though he fell, he was enabled to re- 
pent. 

Fourth. We see an adaptation by God of His punish- 
ments to the particular case; teaching us that He deals 
with each of us according to our need — according to the 
particular character of our temperament and surroundings. 
Not one single sorrow or trial fell on Job that could have 
been spared him. Of this we may be absolutely certain. 
If Job had been too fond of his children, their removal 
would probably have been all that was necessary; if he 
had been too greedy of earthly fame or reputation, its loss 
would probably have been sufficient; if he had loved his 
wealth too much, his poverty would perhaps have healed 
him of covetousness; if the love of pleasure had been his 
snare, bodily affliction might have saved him. But Job's 
sin was neither of these. It was deeper and broader than 
them all. His self-righteousness was the sin of his heart, 
the idol of his worship. So inveterate had this worship 
become that he did not know how evil it was ; and his pros- 
perity and happiness in all his worldly interests, were to him 
the evidences of his righteousness. To rouse him, therefore, 
all must be removed from him. To prove to him that he 
was self-righteous, rather than righteous, his evidences must 
be taken away; until he could say with the Psalmist, 
" before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now have I kept 
Thy word" (Ps. cxix, 67). Let us clearly see and remember, 
that God, of necessity, deals ivith each of us according to our 
need, and according to our various dispositions and circum- 
stances. 



TftE ministry of sorrow—continued. 133 

Fifth. As in the general view of God's dealings with us, 
in the preceding chapter, we again find here the truth that 
all His punishments are for the sake of reformation. That 
was evidently the whole object in Job's case. There was 
no wrath exhibited, no vengeance displayed. God speaks 
of him to Satan in terms of gentleness, and of approbation 
of his other virtues, at the very time that Job was in that 
state of sin which called for such terrible chastisements. 
He then speaks of him in the very same terms that He 
uses when Job had afterwards humbled himself under 
His mighty hand. His whole dealing with him is marked 
by the calm and kind manner of the surgeon, when he is 
about some terrible operation which is necessary to save 
life. Thank God, we can find nowhere, even in His most 
painful dealings with us, any evidence of vengeance, but 
only of an unspeakable love, bent on our reformation. 

Even in the cases of the nations destroyed utterly, men, 
women and children, by the command of God to the Jews, 
it was not wrath, but mercy and love which removed them 
from a probation in which they had hopelessly degraded 
themselves, to another scene of trial; where, under a plainer 
view of spiritual things, and a severer discipline, they 
might yet be redeemed. Especially was it a mercy to the 
children that they should be removed while yet in inno- 
cence from inevitable corruption and misery. 

Sixth. The preceding deductions from the narrative teach 
us God's purposes, and modes of work in relation to us ; 
but there still remains another grand lesson to be drawn 
from it — a lesson without which in some form we could 
never see how the holiness of God could be reconciled with 
the existence of evil. It is the lesson that though God's 
corrections seemed to Job for a long time very evil, as they 
often do to us; yet that they are in truth good things, because 



134 THE DEATH OF DEATH". 

their object and effect are to bring good out of evil — the evil 
of sin, which, as we have seen, God could not prevent with- 
out a violation of man's nature and His own. So that it may 
be truly said, "Behold, happy is the man whom God cor- 
recteth " (Job v, 17). This plainly appears from the expe- 
rience of Job, in harmony with that of the Psalmist, "it is 
good for me that I have been afflicted, that. I might learn 
Thy statutes" (Ps. cxix, 71); and also in harmony with 
the express declaration of God — when He once let slip His 
thunders upon an entire people who had abandoned Him — 
that He did it "for their good" (Jer. xxiv, 5). The trials 
and sorrows of life, which we call evil, are, therefore, in 
truth good, and good alone — provided it be also true that 
they, alone, or in combination with whatever others in the 
future, shall ultimately bring us through grace to a higher 
and better life. 

Enlightened by the great principles laid down for our 
guidance in this wonderful book, let us now endeavor to 
illustrate their application to the various inequalities of 
life, viz: inequalities of fortune, inequalities of spiritual op- 
portunities, and inequalities of spiritual susceptibilities. 

Now, as we know, God's works are infinitely varied. 
Creative energy alone can and it must expand into this 
infinite variety. All nature, everything in heaven and 
earth, everything in God's entire universe, teaches us, in 
harmony with Scripture and our instinctive perceptions, 
that God, if he be God, must develop this creative energy 
in unending forms and relations. Even man — because 
made in the image of God — would be utterly miserable if 
restrained in the exercise of his faculties of invention, 
production and reproduction to the extent of his powers. 
The possession of faculties forbidden to exert themselves, 
would be unmitigated torture. To say that God should 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW — CONTINUED. 135 

restrain his creative power within any definite proportions, 
or in particular instances not involving a contradiction, is 
simply to say with the fool that there is no God. 

Think of it, then — there are no two things alike, so far 
as w 7 e know, in God's entire universe. Oh, no, no, no — no 
two leaves of the forest wave in the same way ! No two 
little face-spaces, in all their endless variations, can show 
the same features ! No two of the heavenly hosts are 
alike in glory ! No two human souls are alike in capacity 
or in destiny ! Infinite, infinite, infinite variety is stamped 
on all God's w T orks, whether physical, mental or moral!!! 

We can now perceive what a field there is for infinite 
varieties of administration; for rewards and punishments 
and providential arrangements, suited to unending condi- 
tions of mind and temper and disposition — of which Job's 
case was only one, though a most instructive one. 

First then — as to inequalities of fortune. We need not ex- 
emplify them by particular instances — they are apparent 
to us all, from the king on his throne, to the beggar on the 
dunghill; from those who stand upon the topmost height 
of every earthly comfort and refinement, to those who, in 
the dark valleys of life, groan under their heavy burdens 
of neglect and want. True it is that men may in some 
cases, sink into the lowest places of earthly fortune by 
their faults, or rise into the highest by their efforts; but it 
is equally true that, as a rule, the lot of different men is 
cast for them by what we call providential circumstances; 
and that usually the opportunities of fortune do not de- 
pend upon the man, but are provided for him without re- 
gard to any personal merit or demerit on his part. 

Now on the concession that creative energy did justly 
and wisely, as it did inevitably, produce the variety above re- 
ferred to; that this life is only preparatory for a higher life ; 



136 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

and that the discipline of sorrow will ultimately bring us 
through grace to a restoration of our lost estate, and is 
necessary for that end, we can easily reconcile our sense 
of justice with the unequal circumstances of joy or sorrow, 
of poverty or wealth, of apparent happiness or misery 
among men. On the conditions stated, the conclusion is 
inevitable that each has that fortune which is best adapted 
to deliver him from the power of sin, the only real evil 
that can afflict him; and so to educate him for that higher 
state for which he is intended after the brief dream of life 
is over. 

In Job's case we see that these sorrows were exactly 
adapted to him, and necessary for his reformation. If they 
had failed in their end at the first, yet they might have 
been effectual, if in substance repeated again and again 
indefinitely. Nor can any reason be conceived why, in 
another probation, appropriate sorrows might not be even 
more effective than in this. 

But if it be not true that that restoration will ultimately 
be brought about, either here or hereafter, by means of the 
dismal sorrows that surround us, or by others which we 
can conceive, then these inequalities of fortune must remain 
irreconcilable on reason, with the justice and mercy of 
God — for they have no raison detre. 

We do not embrace in this argument the sufferings of 
infants. Our whole discussion relates to the question of 
evilin so far as intelligent and responsible beings are con- 
cerned. The sufferings of infants are inarticulate. We 
cannot interrogate them to know what they are, how great, 
or even whether they are consciously real. If they be so, they 
may have, for aught we know, some moral effect — accord- 
ing to the idea of the poet, who, speaking of a babe in 
heaven, says its life was-^ 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW — CONTINUED. 137 

"Bough only for a babe ; but every step 
Ta'en by her little bleeding feet, had left 
It tracery upon her spirit now, 
In tender lines of love and peace and praise." 

It may be so — we cannot tell; but one thing we know, 
that if we can vindicate as we think they may be vindi- 
cated, God's love and mercy and justice, in connection 
with the existence of evil, in so far as intelligent and re- 
sponsible beings are concerned, no doubt will remain on 
any mind that the apparent sufferings of those innocent 
beings who are of "the kingdom of heaven," could be as 
well explained if the elements of the investigation were 
equally in our possession. 

But the inequalities of external fortune are not the only 
inequalities that exist, nor the most important. There are 
other inequalities to be accounted for, not caused in whole 
or in part by men themselves, as those of fortune some- 
times are, but inequalities inherent in their providential 
circumstances, or in their natures. The individual in- 
stances which we shall give of these, will be of course as 
single sands from the sea-shore, but will we hope suffi- 
ciently illustrate the principles involved. 

Second. There are great inequalities among us from our 
very birth in spiritual opportunities. 

We take two instances which may cover all that lie be- 
tween them. 

One man is placed by no effort of his own in the very 
sunlight of God's smile. In his earthly prospects, in pe- 
cuniary means, in social standing, and in whatever else 
that may be desirable, nothing remains to be suggested 
that can contribute to his advantage. All evils that can 
be foreseen are warded off. All temptations of an external 
sort are as far as practicable removed. He is surrounded 



138 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

by every influence that can contribute to his temporal and 
eternal weal. From his infancy pious parents point his 
eyes upwards. They teach him Divine things — they "talk 
of heaven, and lead the way." The benign influences of 
the Sabbath-school, of parental instruction, of the services 
of the sanctuary, of prayer for guidance from on high, 
surround him like an atmosphere. As far as love and 
foresight, human and Divine, can provide for it, he is made 
as safe as a lamb in a sheltered fold, or as a lovely flower 
in a well-watered garden. His life conforms after its kind 
to this beginning, and in due time he ends his days in the 
peace of God and man, and enters into his eternal rest. 

Another man is placed, by no fault of his own, in cir- 
cumstances the very reverse of all this — though his lot is cast 
in a Christian land. From his infancy he is surrounded 
by squalid poverty — by an ignorance, blasphemy and de- 
pravity of which most of us can have no conception. He 
grows up, wallowing, like a pig, in some crowded tene- 
ment, such as those in the "Five Points" of New York, 
and in the very atmosphere of physical and moral cor- 
ruption — in which morality and immorality are not 
even empty names, for the distinction between them 
is almost unknown. He hears of God only in the curses 
of rage and blasphemy. The name of Jesus is known to 
him only in the same way ; and of him as a Saviour he 
never hears, or if he does, he knows no more what is meant 
by it than he does of the Copernican theory. He grows 
up with no conscience or with a perverted one; and he 
finds his place among the "dangerous" or "criminal 
classes," by a law almost, if not quite, as urgent as the law 
of gravity. If by any chance he is brought temporarily, 
in after life, under the influences of the Gospel, or is even 
instructed in the first principles of that great lesson to 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW — CONTINUED. 139 

which Divine wisdom hag assigned a lifetime of effort, 
and which, in our experience, requires it, he is like one 
learning the Chinese language without acquaintance with 
it symbols. 

Now we reverently ask, in the holy name of the God of 
justice; we solemnly cry out to heaven and earth, in the 
joint names of love and mercy, and ask — why this diffe- 
rence? 

You may say that if we could look into the past, and 
trace the ancestry of these two men, we could see that 
hereditary virtues in the one case, and hereditary vices in 
the other, had produced naturally and inevitably the two 
conditions — according to the law that the sins of the 
fathers are visited on the children. It may be so. We 
admit, in point of fact, the general operation of that law, 
so far as it affects the nation, the community, or even the 
earthly condition of the individual. The conditions of 
human life must be entirely changed, perhaps, if the sins 
of the fathers are not to be visited in this sense on the 
children; for as God cannot prevent the sins of men, 
neither can he always prevent this hereditary effect with- 
out changing man's nature. This effect appears distinctly 
in action in the case of the heathen nations — the brother- 
miserables of the unhappy man we have described. That 
admirably book — "The Bible and the Classics" — the fruit 
of forty years' labor by the late venerable Bishop Meade, 
of Virginia; and which may be his monument when his 
bishopric shall have been forgotten in all but the name — 
makes it clear that all the barbarous races of every age. 
and clime, or their ancestors, originally possessed the true 
faith. For it proves that in all these religions are to be 
found traces, more or less distinct, of the fall, the sacrifice 
for sin, and the restoration of sinners through that sacri- 



140 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

fice; and it also proves that the nearer we can get, in the 
history of any race, to the original revelation of God out 
of heaven, the clearer become these traces of truth. But 
the fathers departed from the faith more and more, gene- 
ration after generation, till this original revelation was 
piled over, Pelion on Ossa, by mountains of error and cor- 
ruption; and till midnight darkness settled down upon 
their descendants, leaving only here and there traces of 
these fundamental truths. Thus were the sins of the 
fathers visited upon the children. 

But we utterly deny the justice of such a law in its ope- 
ration or the ultimate spiritual condition of the individual. 
Here the eternal fatherhood of God comes in and reverses 
the operation of the law. There is, there can be no justice 
in any law which demands that a man shall be damned 
for his earthly father's sins, and therefore no such law is 
God's law. On the contrary, in matters of life and death, 
it is thus laid down by God Himself: "The soul that sin- 
neth it shall die; the son shall not bear the iniquity of his 
father" (Ezekiel xviii, 20), but "every man shall be put 
to death for his own sin" (Deut. xxiv, 16). 

Now, on the traditional dogma of future pun'shment 
which denies to the unhappy child of God whom we have 
described (and to his brother heathen) a new probation, 
though he had little or no chance in this one — he is to "lie 
down in everlasting burnings," for an ignorance for which 
he was not responsible, and for a moral depravity almost 
unavoidable in the circumstances in which he was placed. 
That dogma, then, cannot explain this inequality. 

Third. There are great inequalities among us from our 
birth in spiritual susceptibilities. 

Take several extreme cases, so that the principles which 
cover them may cover the infinite varieties of character 
that lie between them. 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW — CONTINUED. 141 

One of these extremes may be fitly represented by the 
life and character of the sainted Chisholm, whose pure and 
gentle spirit rose in 1855, on the wings of the pestilence, 
from Norfolk, that sad, fever-scourged "City by the Sea," 
to a purer air — from a charnel-house, to the "house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens." We knew him 
well when he was a student of divinity. His sweet and 
gentle nature seemed almost too shrinking for effective 
action in this rough world; but only seemed so, as the 
sequel proved — for surely his was a heroic life and death. 
His face beamed with the light from inner purities. His ' 
runners were soft and almost timid. As a teacher of 
youth, he employed that higher and better discipline which 
none but the loving heart and reluctant hand can employ. 
When his scholars were idle or negligent, or ventured on 
those pranks and tricks by which they so often annoy their 
teachers, a word of earnest remonstrance and appeal from 
him, in pathetic rather than judicial tones, would often 
prove more effective than the rod in the hands of sterner 
teachers. In manner, in appearance, in conversation, in 
character, he always reminded us of the "beloved dis- 
ciple." We verily believe that the slightest chastisement 
from his heavenly Father's hand would have proved more 
effective on him than desolating lightnings of penal discip- 
line on sterner natures. We believe that he could scarcely 
have survived what he regarded as a withdrawal from him 
of his heavenly Father's face. Early called to serve his 
Master in that highest of all earthly service — the ministry 
of His Word — he grew in grace and in the knowledge of 
his Lord, till he seemed to- those who knew him best as 
already, in spirit, severed from earth and meet for heaven. 

Now we remark that this saintly man had all this, not 
by his own merit — he would haye been the first to disclaim 



142 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

it — but by the gift of God. Nay more, his original tempe- 
rament, bestowed on him by God in his unconscious in- 
fancy, alone enabled him to become, so early, the recipient 
of such rich gifts of grace. 

Compare this case with another — we do not name him — 
a man endowed by nature from his birth with volcanic 
passions of every kind; one organically perfect, and of in- 
tense vitality; one to whom the joys and pleasures and 
excitements of this carnal life are intensely alluring; one 
whose pulses of passion are to most of us inconceivably 
strong; one whose temptations are as tempests compared 
to the milder winds that blow us about; one on whom the 
streams of downward influence are very cataracts of Niag- 
ara as compared with the rapids that float us on below. 
This man is placed by God in a furnace of baleful fires, 
heated seven times hotter than it is wont to be heated. 
He is at the same time endowed with strong spiritual de- 
sires. A mighty conflict rages in his heart, which wrings 
from his soul at every frequent fall the cry — " Oh ! wretched 
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death?" If to the last, he rises after every fall, with his 
weary eye still fixed on Christ, he is surely one of the 
anointed "kings and priests unto God." But suppose he 
falls and does not rise again before the life-long battle ends ! 
In either event there is great inequality between him and 
the Rev. James Chisholm — an inequality not produced by 
themselves, but by the conditions of their natures and 
temperaments for which they individually were not re- 
sponsible, and which rendered it most difficult for the one 
and comparatively easy for the other to walk in the same 
heavenly path. 

The traditional dogma as to future punishment cannot 
show the justice of this inequality. 



\ 



* HE MINISTRY 0# SOURO^— CO^TINUEI). 14$ 

But compare with these another case — one whose counter- 
part is known to most of us. He has much of the vitality 
and passion of the last without his spiritual susceptibility. 
By nature, rather than by habit, he is of the belligerent, 
aggressive and self-asserting type. He is obstinate in his 
opinions when once they are formed, and can be persuaded 
by no apparent earthly means from a predetermined course. 
He is impenetrable to rebuke, remonstrance or persuasion, 
and invulnerable to any of the ordinary chastisements of 
life. He has what seems to be an absolute incapacity to 
believe much more than he sees and hears and handles. 
To him, therefore, the things that are seen and temporal 
are the only real things; and the things that are unseen 
and eternal are visions of things that may or may not be 
true, but are too vague and intangible to be the basis of 
faith with him. All these things are conditions of nature 
or temperament,*as said before,- which were born with him. 
He is by no means a depraved or abandoned man — on the 
contrary, he sees that certain principles of virtue are in- 
dispensable for individual well being and for the good of 
the race; and he strives to propagate and live up to such 
principles. But he takes no personal interest in the Chris- 
tian religion, because he thinks that no one can be certain 
about anything connected with it; and because the dissen- 
sions among Christians themselves prove to him that they 
who have studied it most understand it least — for each of 
the various creeds is at war with each other. 

Take as a fourth case, the same type of man, differing 
from this one only in the fact that he leads a life of 
thorough self-indulgence in all the forms of sin, under the 
influence of his strong passions and the weakness of his 
moral restraints. 

Now, character is a very complex thing, and in its for- 



144 The death otf deat£. 

maticm, temperament or natural disposition, may be more 
or less modified by proper culture. But the fact remains 
that natural capacities and incapacities are prime elements 
in awarding judgment on man's responsibility. 

How then are we to account for the inequalities existing 
between the soul that is happily constituted and that 
which is unhappily constituted for moral effort? between 
the soul endowed with exquisite spiritual susceptibilities, 
and that which is comparatively insensible to such in- 
fluences? All have to travel the same road, under the 
same penalties, but with unequal capacity to do the one 
or avoid the other. 

The traditional dogma cannot explain the justice of 
these inequalities — which, let us bear in mind, are in- 
finitely varied. 

Now, in order to vindicate any government whatever, 
human or divine, inequalities of administration, however 
inevitable, must be accounted for and brought within the 
principles of justice. God Himself recognizes the propriety 
of this. He does not reply to an honest enquiry into the 
justice of any arrangement of His, as some of those who 
claim especially to know His will are accustomed to do. 
" Who art thou that reply est against God?" He reserves 
such language for* those who desire rather to condemn Him 
than to vindicate His justice. He uses a different language 
to all honest investigators — "search and see," "try the 
spirits," be jealous of accepting as My will what may be 
told you by those who may or may not know it, till you 
have seen by honest prayerful examination, "whether 
these things be so." Even to those whose enquiries are 
mixed with cavilling, or are uncandid, He sometimes uses 
this language. When even the rebellious Jews charge Him 
with injustice or inequality in His ways, He vouchsafes, 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW — CONTINUED. 145 

instead of cutting off their speech, to reason with them 
and to prove His justice to them by an appeal to facts and 
to their consciences. On one of these occasions, He thus 
answers them : " Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked 
should die? saith the Lord, and not that he should return 
from his ways and live? * * * Yet ye say that the 
way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, house of Israel, 
is not My way equal? Are not your ways unequal? * 

* * for I have no pleasure in the death of him that 
dieth, saith the Lord; wherefore turn yourselves and live" 
(Eze. xviii, 23-32). This is in answer to complaint of in- 
justice, on account, among other things, of the supposed 
responsibility of the children for the sins of the fathers 
already noticed. These various texts contain the lesson 
that we are entitled to enquire into apparent inequalities. 

Now, on the concession that the Heavenly Father is in 
truth, as He says He is, like an earthly father in love and 
forbearance, and much more loving and forbearing than 
he, we may reasonably suppose that He will not confine 
His children to one brief probation, in which alone they 
can prepare for heaven or escape hell. If this be so, all 
difficulties are removed, all inequalities are adjusted. 

Let us see if it be not so. We have already seen — fol- 
lowing Dr. Bledsoe — that sin is the assertion of a free will 
in things forbidden by God; that it is a contradiction in 
terms to talk of coercing a free will or enforcing love, and 
that therefore God could not prevent sin without a contra- 
diction, which is impossible with God. Hence the only 
real question in regard to God's holiness in connection 
with evil is, as Dr. Bledsoe truly says, why He created be- 
ings whom He knew would surely fall into sin. We have 
endeavored to show (Part I, ch. vi) that Dr. Bledsoe has 
not answered this question satisfactorily; and that it can- 
7 



146 THE UEATH OF DEATH. 

not be answered satisfactorily on the traditional theory in 
regard to future punishment. But we think it can be an- 
swered satisfactorily on the theory of ultimate restoration 
of the universe to peace and harmony; or on what will 
practically amount to the same thing, so far as we are con- 
cerned, the theory that man's nature involves a capacity 
for repentance after dissolution of the flesh, as well as be- 
fore that dissolution. The argument on that theory will, 
in brief, stand thus: The creation of a free agent is neces- 
sary to the glory of the universe, and Creative power can 
be contented, in the nature of things, with nothing less 
than such a being. Such a being may fall, and thus evil 
will irresistably result. It is unjust that God should 
create beings who may fall into exquisite and hopeless suf- 
ferings, in spite of Divine power to prevent it. But, on 
the other hand, it is just and merciful and worthy of 
Divine power to create beings who will fall if their suffer- 
ings are temporary and only such as are necessary to fit 
them each for the highest state of which his nature is 
capable, and which he could not attain as a free agent 
without such temporary sufferings as may be adapted to 
his peculiar case. Hence we may conclude that evil is 
necessary if God is to create free agents, but that it is not 
eternal, and shall not triumph over God: for He can bring 
it to an end, consistently with the freedom of the will, by 
the temporary suffering of man, through the eternal salva- 
tion of Christ; and in truth turn it into good. 

On this argument neither the inequalities of life nor the 
existence of evil can present any difficulty to an intelli- 
gent mind; as we proceed to illustrate still further. 

We have learned from the book of Job that God works 
personally and specially in the case of each of us, not only 
on a fixed and inexorable law, but on the principles of 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW — CONTINUED. 147 

equity; that He employs in this work every agency at His 
command in heaven earth and hell, for our redemption; 
that He adapts the circumstances of sorrow bereavement 
or temptation best fitted to arouse us from our sinful state, 
to our peculiar temperaments and conditions; and that He 
does all this in love and mercy — because solely intended 
for our reformation and happiness; not only here, but 
especially, in our future life. 

What, then, is that life? It is designed to be a higher 
and better life, we know — but what sort of life? Is it to 
be a life of peace and rest alone, of joy and praise and 
heavenly song? Is it to be a life of mere luxurious enjoy- 
ment of the blessings of perfect health of body and mind 
and soul, and of angelic social intercourse? These, and 
much more than these, will no doubt thrill with joy every 
heart in that glorious home; but these will be, we must 
believe, only a part and the smaller part of that ineffable 
bliss; or, rather, these will be but the sequel or the inter- 
ludes in that which is far higher — active service of our 
God in such work as may be prescribed by Him for each 
of us. Let any Christian, even here, cease or slack from 
work for God in his appropriate sphere, and he will know 
from bitter experience how his faith languishes, his love 
grows cold, and his joy in God withers like a frosted 
flower. And so it must be there, for our natures will not 
be changed otherwise than by being purified through 
Christ. Luxurious self-indulgence, idle seeking of mere 
happiness, would introduce discord and misery even into 
that blessed abode. Happiness is a maid divine, too coy 
to be caught when sought for her own sake alone, but she 
will fly speedily, adorned with bewitching smiles of love 
and tenderness, and rest all her charms of grace and beauty 
pri the bosom of Him who has allured her by brave and 



148 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

faithful service of her Father and her God. Let a man 
cease from work even in this world, and though you crown 
him with wealth and fame and all that men most prize, 
yet he will be wretched and miserable. It has often been 
said that the hardest work any man ever did was to do 
nothing. His nature demands effort, and both here and 
yonder that demand must be met, if he is to be happy, by 
constant employment. 

When our Saviour tells us that in His "Father's house 
are many mansions" (John xiv, 12); when we are told in 
so many texts that each man's position there will be as- 
signed him according to the deeds done in the body; that 
there are degrees of glory in the Father's house, &c, — we 
are to understand that in this world we are, each of us, 
being moulded and prepared for some particular purpose, 
some particular employment, which shall be peculiarly 
our own. Some are being prepared, like "Michael, the 
prince," (Dan. xii, 1) for God's sterner work — to lead his 
embattled hosts or execute his judgments; some, like 
"Lucifer, son of the morning," before he fell, to rule some 
world, some star-cluster, some nebula, or some other mighty 
province of God's universal empire; some, like Gabriel, to 
"stand in the presence of God," ready to "fly swiftly" and 
convey His gracious will (Luke i); and some — ah! let us 
not forget them, the gentle, loving Johns — to participate 
in the pure atmosphere nearest the throne, with cherubim 
and seraphim and all the angelic hosts, in all ecstatic 
ministries of delightful service. The things that are un- 
seen by us here are, as we are told in Scripture, the real 
things, and all this blessed work will be intensely real. 

Now, it would be folly in any father or teacher to sub- 
ject a gentle, timid nature to the severe experience or dis- 
cipline that may be essential to fit a sterner character for 



THE MINISTRY OF SORROW — CONTINUED. 149 

-his appropriate work or position in life. It would abso- 
lutely unfit him for the station he might otherwise fill well. 
We may be sure then that God will do no such thing. If 
He needs to develop a being for .the gentler ministries of 
heaven He may endow and discipline one like the saintly 
Chisholm; if one is needed for sterner or more active 
work, the endowments and discipline of the more in- 
tractable characters with whom he has been compared 
might be appropriate to that end. But if their earthly 
discipline, through fierce temptations operating on human 
infirmity, or through lack of spiritual susceptibility, either 
inborn or induced by sin, cannot be made effective here, 
why may it not be made so in conjunction with the dis- 
cipline of that world where the spiritual eyes are opened to 
its realilties, and where the shadowy things of earth have 
passed away. It may well be that privation in this life of 
the gifts of fortune, of spiritual opportunity, and of spir- 
itual susceptibility in one case, and their full bestowal in 
another, would prove, in connection with a future proba- 
tion, the most appropriate and even indispensable condi- 
tions of that highest happiness and perfection of which 
each is capable, and of the overthrow of all evil. 

It thus appears that all conceivable inequalities may, 
on the theory we maintain, be easily reconciled, not only 
with justice and equity, but with the highest good of the 
creature. Wisdom and love can both applaud them since 
they are consistent with bestowing on each the greatest 
good of which his peculiar nature is susceptible, and since 
his ultimate restoration to the favor of God will render all 
temporary experiences of sorrow so utterly insignificant 
that he can join with the Psalmist in the highest possible 
conviction that it was good for him to have been afflicted. 

Nay, given the condition that God designs ultimately 



150 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

to bring to an end the reign of sin and 1o restore the har- 
mony of His entire universe, and we can have no difficulty 
in understanding that infinitely varied inequalities in tem- 
poral dispensations are the only means which wisdom and 
love can employ to mould to that blessed plan the in- 
finitely varied natures of intelligent creatures. No other 
course is possible or would be just and merciful in dealing 
with free agents whose wills are not to be coerced but per- 
suaded into harmonious action. 

Let us pause here and gather up the more prominent 
truths we have thus far attained. 

First. We have seen (Part I, ch. v) that there is no word 
in Scripture which compels the belief of a hopeless punish- 
ment in the world to come. 

Second. We have also seen (lb. ch. vi, et supra) that 
there is nothing in the nature of man or the nature of sin 
which forbids us to hope that the lost soul may repent and 
turn to God in the future life. 

Third. In the last chapter (Part II, ch. i) we took a 
positive step, and showed that God's nature, as our Father 
and his connection with us in that relation, are plain bases 
of that hope — nay, that we could not give effect to His 
Word revealing that relation in its simplicity and truth, 
or realize it in its wonderful glory without accepting that 
hope. 

Fourth. We now take another positive step and show 
that all sorrows and bereavements and losses; all inequal- 
ities of fortune and of spiritual endowments, and all diffi- 
culties in respect to the existence of evil, can be explained 
and reconciled with the justice and love of God on the 
basis of that hope — but that without that hope midnight 
darkness and gloom surround all these questions. 

In the next chapter we hope to show that these conclu- 
sions are affirmatively supported by Scripture. 



DIVINE PLAN OF CREATION, AND SALVATION. 151 



CHAPTER III. 

THE DIVINE PLAN OF CREATION, AND OF SALVATION. 

WE learn from Scripture that the plan of creation and 
salvation, was considered and arranged in the coun- 
cils of the eternal Godhead, before the world began. 

We read that "the Word," or Christ, "was in the begin- 
ning with God; all things were made by Him; and with- 
out Him was not anything made that was made" (John i, 
2, 3). This is spoken of Christ as distinguished, in His 
mediatorial character, from the Godhead. And when we 
are told, in this sense, that without Him nothing was made, 
we are to understand that without a mediator, nothing 
could have been made — for inevitable evil would have 
brought universal and remediless misery to all the works 
of God; and, therefore, it would have been inconsistent 
with the character of God to have made them. 

Accordingly, in perfect harmony with this view, we read 
in Heb. i, 2, that God " hath in these last days spoken unto 
us by His Son, Jesus Christ, whom He hath appointed heir 
of all things, by whom also He made the worlds " — worlds 
whose creation could not have been permitted by His 
justice and mercy, without the prearranged salvation of 
Christ. Therefore, we further read in 2 Tim. i, 9, 10, that 
God "hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, 
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose 
and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the 
world began; but is now made manifest by the appearing 



152 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

of our Saviour Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath 
brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." 
We learn from this that in the councils of eternity, Christ was 
ordained to call men, by His merit, not theirs, from the sin 
into which they would fall; and that He would make that 
call so effectual, as actually to "abolish death" — that death 
which sin would introduce. 

St. Paul, speaking of these wondrous things, declares 
them to be "the wisdom of God in a mystery, which God or- 
dained before the world unto our glory" (1 Cor. ii, 7). And 
he blesses God that "He hath chosen us" in Christ, "before 
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and with- 
out blame before Him in love" (Eph. i, 4). 

The Saviour Himself crowns the truth of an eternally 
ordained salvation, when in His last prayer as Mediator, 
he says, "And now, Father, glorify Thou Me with thine 
own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the 
world was" (John xvii, 5). This glory, we may not doubt, 
was the glory of devising the creation and restoration of 
all things. 

; To form, therefore, an intelligent idea of creation and 
salvation, we must look at them as a whole so far as we may 
be enabled by God's Holy Word to do so. To attempt to 
understand salvation, without its component part, the plan 
of creation, or creation without the scheme of salvation 
on which it is based, would be like the attempt to under- 
stand a world by examining one of its hemispheres alone. 
The failure to bear this in mind always is doubtless the 
source of much of the vagueness and confusion which 
involve the question of the future destiny of our race. 

Since we are made "in the image of God — after his like- 
ness," and are, therefore, invested with- the Divine capaci- 
ties in kind, though they are infinitely lower than the 



DIVINE PLAN OF CREATION, AND SALVATION. 153 

Divine in degree, we are capable of understanding in some 
dim measure the Divine emotions and plans as revealed 
to us in Scripture. And, therefore, we are honored with 
a glorious privilege — we are earnestly invited by our Father 
in heaven to "search the Scriptures," to see what is the 
truth about these great things; to test every "doctrine 
whether it be of God" (John vii, 17); to try the spirits 
(those who teach us) whether they are of God" (1 John iv, 
1). It is not then presumptuous in us reverently to 
attempt in the light of Scripture the realization of the 
mode in which our Father in heaven did consider and 
elaborate the plan of creation and salvation, "before the 
world was." The plan we might conceive would indeed 
be worth nothing as matter of proof, if it should not be in 
harmony with what He has revealed. But if it should 
prove to be at least equally in harmony with His revela- 
tion with any other plan; and should, moreover, cover 
the whole ground, harmonize His justice and His mercy, 
and remove the difficulty of conceiving how evil in this 
world and the next can consist with His holiness — then 
may we indeed rejoice to believe that we have the true 
thread which can lead us out of the labyrinths of doubt 
and difficulty by which we are beset. A fortiori, if the 
Scripture confirms that plan, we may consider it conclu- 
sively established, even though it should be thought there 
is nothing positive in Scripture on the subject. 

We think, however, that the plan we shall submit is not 
only marked by all the foregoing features, but that Scrip- 
ture fairly interpreted establishes it positively. 

We may then conceive our God and Father in heaven, 
sitting in those councils of eternity of which we read 
above, and devising our world. From the lips of Jehovah 
we may hear, with adoring awe, the first words—" Let us 



154 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

create another heaven and earth; let us fill it with beauty 
and joy; let us crowd its seas, its continents and its firma- 
ment with " living things" — with birds, with fishes, and 
with things moving in the waters; with cattle and creep- 
ing things and things moving on the earth. Let us make 
the earth bring forth all the food needed for the sustenance 
of all these living things. Let us adorn it with light and 
warm it with genial heat, so that all may be happy 
there; nor let us stay our hand till the whole shall 
be so perfect that we ourselves shall say it is 'very 
good.' Our angelic hosts will rejoice to see this new ex- 
hibition of our love and power. They will rejoice to visit 
another happy world, floating in the depths of boundless 
space, where they can study with a new delight still 
further manifestations of our infinite Creative work, until 
we increase their ecstacy with a greater wonder still. Till 
then they will see beautiful creatures in unending variety ? 
and possessing for them the charm that they are mere inert 
matter, moulded into intricate and diverse forms of living 
grace. These creatures, so strange to them, because so un- 
like them in having no ' gift Divine,' no knowledge even 
of their Maker's love, will yet inspire them w T ith pleasing 
thoughts of our glory and our might. Then, while they 
are thus engaged, let us surprise them with a new wonder 
and delight — 'let us make man in Our image, after Our 
likeness' (Gen. i, 26), but yet 'a little lower than tae 
angels" (Ps. viii, 5; Heb. ii, 7). This younger and weaker 
brother will call forth all their tenderness and give them 
a new and delightful employment — the ministry of service 
(Heb. i, 14), the joy of bestowing happiness upon those 
less favored than themselves. Their present bliss derived 
from us shall thus be enhanced until they 'shout for joy.' 
• f But here a great difficulty springs up — if we create map. 



BiViNS! Plan of creation, and salvation. 155 

endowed with Divine capacities, his will cannot then be 
controlled by us. His liability to fall will be inseparable 
from the freedom of his will. Living in the world, and 
thus, unlike the angels, away from the shelter of his 
Father's home, seeing only by faith instead of having con- 
stant communion with us, he may forget us, and rebel 
against us, by doing his own will instead of our's. Nay, 
we foresee that he will do so, as we foresee that even some 
of the angels will not keep their first estate. If they shall 
fall— from our very side, and in our presence — how much 
more shall he? Weak he will be, by reason of flesh and 
sense, urging his will to self-assertion ; and the contagious 
influence of depraved example in others, when once sin 
begins to work, will intensify this evil tendency. At the 
same time the fallen angels will seek to involve him in 
the same ruin with themselves. If he resists them he will 
no longer be wrestling against flesh and blood, like him- 
self, but against principalities, against powers, against the 
rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual 
wickedness in heavenly places (Ephesians vi, 12). Yes, 
he will surely fall. Every man and woman that shall 
live will fall. All will depart from us and be filled with 
their own devices (Pro v. i, 31). This fall will bring in 
death, and the bitter sting of that death will be sin (1 Cor. 
xv, 56) — a constant resistance of our authority, the con- 
sequent ruin of our world, and with it an end of that uni- 
versal harmony which now fills our entire creation, and 
which is the joy and glory of God. 

" I am, I am power, I am justice, I am mercy, I am joy, 
I am peace, I am love (1 John iv, 16), I am 'over all' 
(Rom. ix, 5), I am 'all in all' (1 Cor. xv, 28) — irreparable 
evil cannot therefore be brought into our universe. How then 
can we create a being who, in spite of all that power and 



15(5 ^HE DEATH OF t)EATtt. 

love can do, will immediately sink into hideous and hope- 
less misery and ruin? True, we are not God if we cannot 
create at will infinite varieties of forms and endowments. 
Creative wisdom and love and power cannot be content 
with mere negative forms of being. The Divine Spirit 
must expand into higher effort. It has already done so in 
the ministering spirits that surround the Godhead, and 
execute our supreme will. Even man, if he should be 
created, endowed as he would be with a divinely restless 
mind, would, from his very nature, multiply the works of 
his hands in unending forms. If he should be denied the 
right to do so, his existence would be an unmitigated 
curse; and gloom, wretchedness and despair would forever 
deprive him of a moment's peace, far more of joy. The very 
first demand of his nature would be employment, inven- 
tion, various development of his God-given powers. He 
had as well, nay, far better be an oyster or a stone, than to 
be the possessor of powers capable of perpetual and blissful 
exercise, and yet be forbidden the lawful employment of 
them. And this is simply because he would be made in 
our image. The Divinity that would stir within him 
would be but a spark of that creative energy which is an es- 
sential part of our infinite love and power. Our divinity, then, 
cannot deny itself (2 Tim. ii, 13), and must therefore exer- 
cise itself in all creative or productive energy that is con- 
sistent with our holiness. 

" But can creative power be justly exercised on any crea- 
ture, which, by the act of creation, is immediately placed 
where creative wisdom knows that it will fall into hopeless 
misery and ruin, without a remedy from that creative power 
itself? True, creative power must of necessity be exerted, 
but creative holiness cannot permit its exertion if absolute 
evil will result to the object of this creative power. Such 



MVltfE 1>LAN Of CREATION, AND SALVATION. 15? 

an act would bring confusion and contradiction into a 
world made and ruled by infinite wisdom and love — and 
God cannot be the ' author of confusion, but of peace' 
(1 Gor. xiv, 33). He cannot create one who shall bG 
tempted to hopeless ruin, knowing that he will certainly 
fall under the temptation; for then it would not be true 
that 'God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth 
he any man ' (James i, 13). No glory of ours could justify 
such utter and hopeless misery without end. That glory, 
to be pure, must harmonize with justice to each of its 
elements or constituent parts. It would be dearly bought 
at the expense of injustice or wrong to the meanest of our 
creatures, for justice doth thrice demand that if any man 
sin, he must be put to death for his own sin alone (Deut. 
xxiv, 16; 2 Kings xix, 6; 2 Chron. xxv, 4), and not from 
any considerations of advantage to ourselves or others. 
The glory of our universe would be marred and stained 
all over by the anguish of a single intelligent or sensitive 
being, languishing for its sake, incurably, anywhere within 
its boundless space. Evil and disorder would triumph over 
God, and would themselves be Gods. 

"Here, then, is the difficulty that demands eternal coun- 
sels — a Divine necessity to create a being who will surely 
fall, immediately, into sin, and bring in universal misery; 
the Divine holiness inconsistent with the continuance of 
that evil, because God must be all in all. Man's creation 
necessary — man's ruin inevitable, in spite of any means 
that God can employ, because man's will is free. 

But with us the end is seen from the beginning, for with 
God nothing shall be impossible (Luke i, 37). Our counsels 
are but the echo of the infallible word of power. On the 
condition that evil can be made temporary; that a pro- 
vision can be made for the redemption of man from his 



US &im i>fiATH Of DEATri. 

fall — a provision so complete and so potent that we fore- 
see that by an acceptance of it man can and will be re- 
deemed; that some under one dispensation of external 
circumstances, and some under another; that some in a 
shorter, and others in a longer time; that some in this 
world, and others in the next — each after his own man- 
ner and according to his peculiar disposition and character, 
yet all at last — will accept this provision, then surely there 
is no inconsistency with holiness in creating such beings. 
The temporary evil resulting from the creation of such a 
being will not be absolute evil — for it may and will, on the 
condition of ultimate overthrow, be in truth converted by 
that overthrow into an eternal good: because it will have 
given needful experience to the creature, it will have in- 
ured the soul to contest against all that is contrary to the 
will of God, and taught it the danger of a fall. 

"Man may thus be justly created. And so 'let us make 
man in our image, after our likeness. ,,, 

Before producing the texts which, as we think, will be 
found not only to be in harmony with this view, but to 
establish it — in connection with those already cited — let 
us lay down the principle on which their weight is to be 
estimated. 

It is what we will call the mathematical principle, and is 
one which is to be found stated in the books on morals 
and on law. It applies to the proof both of facts and of 
doctrines. It will probably be found stated nowhere more 
clearly and tersely than by Wills "on Circumstantial Evi- 
dence" ch. viii, § 2, p. 239. We quote from the first 
American, following the third English edition: 

"In proportion to the number of cogent circumstances, 
each separately bearing a strict relation to the same infer- 
ence, the stronger their united force becomes, and the more 



DIVINE PLANJ3F CKEATION, AND SALVATION. 159 

secure becomes our conviction of the moral certainty of 
the fact they are alleged to prove; as the intensity of light 
is increased by the concentration of a number of rays to 
a common focus. It is forcibly remarked by a learned 
writer, that the i more numerous are the particular analogies, 
the greater is the force of the general analogy resulting from 
the fuller induction of facts, not only from the mere acces- 
sion of particulars, but from the additional strength which 
each particular derives by being surveyed jointly with 
other particulars, as one among the correlative parts of a 
system' (Hampden's Essay, p. 63). Although neither the 
combined effect of the evidence, nor any of its elements, 
admits of numerical computation, it is indisputable that 
the proving power increases with the number of the inde- 
pendent circumstances and witnesses, according to a geomet- 
rical progression. Such evidence, in the words of Dr. 
Reid (Essay on the Intell. Pow., ch. iii), may be compared 
to a rope made of many slender filaments twisted together. 
The rope has strength sufficient to bear the stress laid upon 
it. though no one of the filaments of which it is composed 
would be sufficient for that purpose." 

In Starkie on Evidence (margin p.) 853, the same prin- 
ciple is laid down, and he says "the probability derived 
from the concurrence of a number of independent proba- 
bilities increases not in a merely cumulative, but in a com- 
pound and multiplied proportion. This is a consequence 
derived from pure abstract mathematical principles." 

The probabilities in favor of the truth towards which a 
number of concurring facts or authorities converge, are 
almost innumerable; and even if a converging series of 
facts or principles could be found pointing in the other 
direction, it would present a case in which the superior 
weight of the probabilities in either direction must decide 



160 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

the matter. All scientific truth results from a comparison 
of probabilities; for as Froude says in his " Plea for the free 
discussion of theological difficulties" (Short Studies), "the 
conclusions of science are never more than in a high de- 
gree probable; they are no more than the best explanation 
of phenomena, which are attainable in the existing state 
knowledge." Nor need we expect a higher degree of cer- 
tainty in most of the disputed questions of theology. 

We not only believe, however, that the theory of God's 
moral government which we here present, is a far better 
"explanation of phenomena" than can be presented by 
the traditional view; but that it rises to a still higher plane. 
We have already seen (Part I, ch. v) that there is nothing 
in Scripture which, if fairly interpreted, is in conflict with 
our theory; and of course, therefore, that there is no con- 
verging series of facts or principles pointing in the other 
direction. If* therefore, a large number of converging texts 
can be produced which are favorable to it, a conclusive case 
will be made out on the principle above laid down. 

We invoke this principle for the benefit of those who 
may be inclined to think that the texts we shall produce, 
taken separately, are like the filaments of the rope, insuffi- 
cient for our purpose, as tending very slightly in our direc- 
tion. We shall produce, for the benefit of candid investi- 
gators of this class, a body of texts which, for the number 
of human agents employed in writing them, for the various 
circumstances under which they were written, and for their 
apparent relation to the subject, derive strength from each 
other u according to a geometrical progression" and together 
make a rope of authority which cannot be broken. 

We ourselves do not regard the principle as necessary 
for our purpose, for we feel sure that most of the texts we 
shall adduce are conclusive in themselves by their own 



DIVINE PLAN OF CREATION, AND SALVATION. 161 

inherent weight; and that taken altogether they constitute 
a revelation that is absolutely indisputable, if candidly 
considered. 

Well might Isaiah say: "Verily thou art a God that 
hidest thyself, God of Israel, the Saviour" (xlv, 15), for 
men have been constantly stumbling amid the apparent 
contradictions in His word already referred to, and are 
now daily saying of Him, in regard to this and almost 
every other question : " Lo He is here, lo He is there." Yes, 
God delights to hide Himself from us, that He may stim- 
ulate us to search for Him. Let us endeavor to find Him 
on this question : 

In Isaiah lvii, 15-16, is a text which we have already 
referred to as a "side-light" against the idea of annihila- 
tion. It is a direct light against the idea of a hopeless 
punishment. "For thus sayeth the high and holy One 
that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in 
the high and holy place, with him also that is of a con- 
trite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble 
and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will 
not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for 
the spirit should fail before Me, and the souls which I have 
made." Now, here is as plain a declaration as can be 
made that if God should continue to withdraw His face 
from any of His creatures, their souls and spirits would 
fail before Him — or, in other words, be annihilated ; and 
He declares almost in terms that this cannot be, and that, 
therefore, He cannot be wroth forever. The alternative 
presents itself then, either that because God cannot be 
wroth forever, a contrite and humble heart must be de- 
veloped some day in every one of us; or else that some day 
the souls of all who are not "contrite and humble" must 
be annihilated. The idea of annihilation we have already 



162 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

endeavored to prove inconsistent with the wisdom and 
foresight of God ; but whether so or not, the text remains 
opposed to the idea of an endless and hopeless punish- 
ment. 

Again, in Matt, xii, 32, we read that " all manner of sin 
and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blas- 
phemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto 
men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Holy 
Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor 
in the world which is to come." 

The advocates of the traditional dogma contradict this 
text. According to their doctrine there is no repentance 
in "the world which is to come"; but here it seems to be 
plainly implied that there is such repentance. We have 
already seen (Part I, ch. v) that St. Augustine allows this — 
saying in his commentary on the text, "for it would not 
be truly said of some that they are forgiven neither in this 
age (seculo) nor in the future, were there not some who, 
though not in this, are forgiven in the future." 

But some one will say that the text proves that there is 
at least one sin, which will not be forgiven in the future 
life. Does the text prove this? Theologians have vainly 
attempted to define this mysterious sin against the Holy 
Ghost. The general, if not the universal conclusion is now, 
we believe, that it is not a specific sin at all, but a persistent 
habit of resisting the Holy Spirit of God, so that His re- 
straining and renewing influences cannot become operative. 
But suppose it be some specific sin — the text only declares 
that it shall not be forgiven in the seon that is to succeed 
the existing aeon. It does not declare that it shall never be 
forgiven. The language is that it shall not be forgiven 
iv touto) toj alcbvi oure iv zw [a&XXovti. This last word 
conveys as well the idea of an immediate as of a remote 



DIVINE PLAN OF CREATION, AND SALVATION. 163 

succession; so that the words may read "in this aeon, nor 
in that which is about to come." But whether so or not, 
the Scripture in the original preserves here (in the word 
aicovi), as everywhere else, the same indefiniteness as to 
the quantitative duration of retribution. So that even he 
who commits the sin against the Holy Ghost, though he 
may not be forgiven in some future seon, may yet be for- 
given at some time in the future. This text, therefore, 
while apparently excepting for an seon or a time him who 
sins against the Holy Ghost, is yet full authority for the 
proposition that "all manner of sin" may be forgiven in 
the future life as well as in this. 

If this be not the true interpretation of the text, then 
this mysterious sin, whatever it may be, may constitute 
the sole exception to our theory; for it is the only case in 
which there is not forgiveness of u all manner of sin" in the 
" world that is to come," as well as in this. 

Again, the traditional dogma is much narrower than the 
following text. In Tim. iv, 10, St. Paul, after speaking of 
the profitableness of Godliness, says: "for therefore we 
both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the 
living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those 
that believe." 

Now, from this text we learn that though Christ is the 
Saviour of those who believe while in this world in an espe- 
cial sense; yet that in some sense he is the Saviour of all, 
whether they believe in this world or not. But on the 
traditional dogma, he is in no sense the Saviour of those 
who do not believe while in this world. He does indeed offer 
them salvation, but if they reject it he cannot be their Sa- 
viour. So that dogma contradicts this text also. Our the- 
ory, on the other hand, affirms the text, in an intelligible 
sense. It is entirely proper to say that those who believe 



164 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

while in this world are saved in an especial manner, be- 
cause they are to be "made unto God kings and priests, 
and shall reign on the earth" (Rev. v, 10); and because 
they escape the bitter intermediate sorrows and sufferings 
of those who delay or protract their coming to Him. 

In Isaiah xlv, 22-24, it is said: " Look unto me and be ye 
saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is 
none else. I have sworn by Myself — the word is gone out of 
My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return — that 
unto Me every knee shall bend, every tongue confess. Surely 
shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and 
strength; even to Him shall men come; and all that are 
incensed against Him shall be ashamed before Him." 

This declaration is repeated in Phil, ii, 9, 11, where, after 
exalting the self-sacrifice of Christ, the apostle says: 
"Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him 
a name which is above every name; that at the name of 
Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven, and things in 
earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue 
should confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father.". The apostle then exhorts us to work out our own 
salvation with " fear and trembling," assuring us of the help 
of God. We need to do so with fear and trembling be- 
cause it seems, as was said before, that those who come to 
Christ in this world, are to be "made unto God kings and 
priests, and shall reign on the earth" (Rom. v, 10), 
and because also they escape all the sufferings of the future 
world which those who reject Him here must endure before 
the are finally saved. 

The adherents of the traditional dogma are wont to in- 
terpret these and similar texts as describing a compulsory 
confession. They add other words to the text, and say the 
confession will be one, "willing or enforced," &c. There 



DIVINE PLAN OF CKEATION, AND SALTATION. 165 

is nothing, however, in the texts, or anywhere else, to jus- 
tify such an interpretation, but the contrary. Neander, 
in his Church History (note to pp. 676, 678, vol. 2), states 
that Didymus in his exposition of this passage "speaks 
of calling on the name of Christ, which extends to the 
salvation of all." Perhaps Didymus knew no more about 
it than other people, but those who like the authority of 
"the Fathers" may like his confession. If we liked their 
authority better than we do, we might cite a goodly num- 
ber of them in support of these views. 

Now, here are texts in which God declares not only that 
to Him in the name of His Son Jesus every tongue shall 
confess and every knee shall bow of things in heaven and 
earth and under the earth, but He has sworn by Himself "in 
righteousness that it shall be so; and here we are tore- 
mark, as well as in connection with the texts hereafter to 
be adduced, that "things under the earth" are almost, if 
not universally held by theologians to mean things in hades 
and in hell, including the lost souls of men and of the 
fallen angels. 

Take another text. In 1 Tim. ii, 4, 6, it is declared that 
"God our Saviour * * * will have all men to be saved 
and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there 
is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the 
man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all to be 
testified in due timeP 

Now, it is not the fact that Chrst is our mediator that 
is to be thus testified. That had been already done, by 
the prophets, by Christ himself, by Paul who wrote these 
lines: but the thing yet to be testified (or made manifest 
in a practical way) is, that he who gave himself a ransom 
for all will have all men to be saved. And the reason why 
this truth, so plainly revealed, is to be remitted for its ful- 



166 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

fillment to some future time, is, plainty, because the work of 
His grace could not be completed finally in thisworld (as we 
shall see more plainly hereafter), inasmuch as many men 
would fail or refuse to accept that ransom, till the realities 
of the future world should "in due time" incline them to 
it. This text corresponds on this point with those from 
1 Cor. xv and Rev. iv, 5, to be cited presently. 

We come now to more important texts ; to those 
which make such plain and positive statements on this 
momentous subject, that it is a marvel they have not al- 
ways been considered conclusive of it. We feel sure they 
would always have been so considered, but for the bias pro- 
duced by the false interpretations of the texts in regard to 
the seonian punishment, which have been already exposed. 

In 1 Peter iii, 18, et seq , we read that "Christ * * * 
hath once suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust that 
He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh 
but quickened in the spirit; by which also He went and 
preached unto the spirits in prison." Then follows a ref- 
erence to those who repented not in the days of Noah. 
This passage has always been a difficult one to the tradi- 
tional theologians, and many curious contortions have been 
made around it by the commentators, in order to make it 
square with their theories. But one thing is clear, that 
at some time and under some circumstances Christ 
preached to the souls "in prison." It may have been at 
the time when, according to that universal confession — the 
apostles' creed — He "went into the place of departed spir- 
its." But wherever it was, since He went as the Christ, He 
could, we may feel sure, have preached to them only the 
gospel of peace. The text is a stumbling block and a 
snare, or else utterly inexplicable on the traditional dogma 
about future punishment; but is entirely intelligible cm 



DIVINE PL AST Of CREATION, AND SALVATION. 16f 

our theory. If the lost are capable of repentance here- 
after, nothing could be more fitting than the announce- 
ment to them by Christ himself of His redeeming love, 
by which alone their repentance could be made effective. 
The fact that there is only one text of this sort, amounts 
to nothing against its teaching; for to him who believes 
it is God's word, one text is as conclusive as a million. 

In Ephesians i, 9-11, after a glowing description of the 
redeeming love of God in Christ, the apostle tells us that 
God has u made known unto us the mystery of His will, ac- 
cording to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in 
Himself; that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, He 
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which 
are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him." 

It is impossible for language to convey to us more 
strongly than this does the plain statement that it is God's 
purpose, not in this earthly time, but in the dispensations of 
His grace, in the u fulness of the times" (plural rcbv fcaipc&v), 
to restore all things to Himself in Christ. A cavil can 
scarcely be made in respect to it. It may indeed be said 
that the things "under the earth" are not alluded to here 
as in the text from Philippians above cited. But to such a 
mere cavil the answer is plain. The controlling words 
in that text are "every knee," "every tongue," and in this 
the controlling words are the "all things" that are to be 
gathered together "m one" in Christ. The other language 
is merely expletive. 

But let us take another text which is even more conclu- 
sive than this, and to which such a cavil cannot be made 
with a grave face; for though the terminal words are prac- 
tically the same, yet the ruling words exclude the cavil 
even more decidedly than those above. After another and 
still more glowing eulogy of Christ, the apostle tells us in 



168 the death of death. 

his epistle to the Colossians i, 18-20, that he is "the head 
of the body, the church : who is the beginning, the first- 
born from the dead; that in all things he might have the 
pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father that in him 
should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through 
the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto 
himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or 
things in heaven." 

Now, if ideas can be conveyed by words, we understand 
it to be here declared that it pleased God to make peace 
through the blood of Christ. Peace where? Why, peace 
where there was no peace before — peace everywhere — peace 
throughout a discordant universe; for by this alone could 
He "reconcile all things" unto Himself. The language in- 
cludes everything that is not at peace. God will not, as 
men sometimes do, " make a desolation and call it peace," 
but He will bring in the fulness of peace that is found in 
Christ. 

Can language be more positive? If it is possible for it to 
be so, we now cite texts which may illustrate that pos- 
sibility : 

In 1 Cor. xv, 22-26, we read that "as in Adam all die, 
even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man 
in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that 
are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He 
shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the 
Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all au- 
thority and power. For He must reign till He hath put 
all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be 
destroyed is death" 

And in 2 Tim. i, 10 (already quoted), it is said that the 
grace of God is " made manifest by the appearing of our 
Saviour Christ, who hath abolished death, and brought life 
and immortality to light through the gospel." 



DIVINE PLAN OF CREATION, AND SALVATION. 169 

Now, in reference to the death in Adam, and the life in 
Christ for all men, the words "as" and "even so," in our 
version, are represented in the original by the words Sb^nep 
and obzco y which may be translated so that the text will 
read "in the same way or manner as in Adam all die, so in 
this way or in like manner in Christ shall all be made 
alive." As death came upon all in the one case, so exactly 
shall life be restored to all in the other. As the corrupt 
nature derived from Adam did, with the concurrence of 
all, bring death upon all, so the grace of Christ, with the 
concurrence of all, shall restore all to life. It is not merely 
a doctrinal statement, but is, like the rest of this chapter, 
a prophetic declaration of the fact that all shall be made 
alive in Christ. The apostle then proceeds to illustrate the 
truth he has stated. He declares that though this will be, 
yet that it will be accomplished in a certain " order" at and 
after the resurrection. Of that resurrection Christ is the 
"first fruits" already garnered. "Afterwards," to wit, at 
the resurrection, there will be other fruits, viz: "they that 
are Christ's at His coming;" and they will "meet the Lord 
in the air," with the "dead in Christ" who have already 
risen, as we learn from 1 Thess. iv. 

"Then (elza) cometh the end." When? Why, afterward, 
for this is the force of the word in the original, as well as 
of the word "then" in our own language. "Afterward 
cometh the end." How long afterward? Why, the end 
cometh "when He shall have delivered the kingdom to God 
even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule, 
and all authority and power." How long will it be till that 
is accomplished? God knows; but however long it may 
be, Christ " must reign " till it is accomplished, " till He hath 
put all enemies under His feet," including Death, the last of 
them all. Till then the kingdom' will not be delivered up 
8 



110 taE DEATH OF DEATH. 

to the Father, and Christ's mediatorial work must go no. 
But some blessed day, however far off it may be, He shall 
end that glorious work by a complete conquest of all His 
enemies. And who are these enemies? Are they poor 
sinful men who have rejected Him in this life? Oh, no, 
no ; He does not hold these to be His enemies — these are 
his poor lost sheep — these are the wanderers from the shel- 
ter of His fold — these are they for whom He died — these 
are they for whom He left the glory of heaven to abide in 
the moral waste of this our world, for they are included 
in the " all " men. The only enemies He Himself names 
are spiritual enemies — sin and death and hell, and their 
children, shame and sorrow and despair, and such as these* 
Though legion in name, they are in truth all one great 
enemy. Any one of these names will do for all — and here 
St. Paul takes the central name, the one we know and 
dread the most; the one around which they all gather, and 
which most fitly includes them all — Death — " the last enemy 
that shall be destroyed is death" and with death shall also 
be destroyed that hell which is His creature and which 
"follows with Him" (Rev. vi, 8). Death is the last 
enemy, because now the sinful probation has ceased. 
Death .has gathered all the harvests that sin had matured, 
and garnered them in his gloomy prison house of hell. 
But the kingdom is now to be delivered up to God the 
Father. Death is now to be despoiled of his prey. His 
prison doors are to be unbarred, for his prisoners have 
called on Him who is "mighty to save." The "set time is 
come," yea, " the fulness of times." "0 death, where is thy 
sting ? grave, where is thy victory ? " The Conqueror of 
the grave is nigh, the Victor over death has come. His 
righteous sword is ready. It sweeps with Almighty power 
through the air, and death is destroyed! Death is abolished! 
Alleluia ! Amen ! 



DIVINE PLAN OF CREATION, AND SALVATION. 171 

Now, on the traditional dogma death will never be "abol- 
ished," death will never he "destroyed," for neither the one 
nor the other can take place so long as he holds in his dread- 
ful grasp either annihilated or suffering souls. But let human 
dogmas be what they will, we bless and praise Thee, 
Thou Father Almighty, Thou blessed Son, Thou quicken- 
ing Spirit, Thou glorious eternal Triune God, that Thou 
hast promised, and that Thou wilt fulfill that glorious pro- 
mise that death shall be destroyed, yea, abolished through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. 

But we rise now to a still higher plane. To the "beloved 
disciple" was given the last recorded revelation from on 
high. He was permitted — as were Paul and some of the 
holy prophets of an earlier time, but "more abundantly 
than they all" — to see visions of the heavenly world, and 
to record them for our instruction. 

In Rev. iv and v, we have, as we may well esteem it, the 
unspeakable privilege of attending the court of heaven, 
and witnessing through the eyes of John the great council 
of the universe, in which God disclosed the full meaning of 
the sacrifice of Christ. While John was gazing, he heard 
a voice, "as it were of a trumpet," which said to him, 
"come up higher, and I will show thee things which must 
be hereafter." "A throne was set in heaven, and one sat 
on the throne, * * * and there was a rainbow round 
about the throne." And then there was heavenly worship 
and ascriptions of praise from the heavenly hosts, and from 
those that were redeemed from among men, to Him that 
sat upon the throne. And John saw "in the right hand of 
Him that sat upon the throne, a book written within, and 
on the back side sealed with seven seals." 

Now, what was this book? It seems very clear that it 
was the book of Christ's redemption — the book in which the 



172 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

full meaning of His mediatorial work was written down. 
John was apparently not yet fully acquainted with its 
scope as then to be displayed; and both he and the rest of 
our race, as well as the angels who "desire to look into" 
the mystery of Christ's salvation (1 Pet. i, 12), shall yet 
learn in future ages still more of it. The writing on the 
back side of the book could be read of course by all. That 
was the open and apparent truth that the " dead in Christ,'' 
and those who should wait and long for his corning, would 
be saved by Him, combined with hints and hopes of. still 
greater benefits to all God's creatures. John knew all this; 
the four and twenty elders knew all this; all the heavenly 
hosts knew all this. Christ had proclaimed it. John had 
experienced it. The apostles who had all passed away 
had declared it; and with more or less of distinctness had 
set forth still deeper truths in connection with the sacrifice 
of the Son of God. All this could be seen on the "back 
side" of the book. But oh! if these glorious truths, and 
the still larger hopes to which we have referred, could be 
seen on the back side of the book, what was "within" the 
book so jealously sealed with seven seals? Did it tell of 
other ineffable triumphs of the cross ? Did it tell dis- 
tinctly anything of those sheep that were lost! lost! lost? 
Did it bring their fate out into the light of heavenly day, 
instead of leaving it in the comparative twilight of apos- 
tolic epistles ? Did it tell the destiny of the great majority 
of mankind, about whom John may then have had some 
doubt? Or, — let us ask it slowly, and with suppressed 
voice, — did it tell the fate of those who lost their "first es- 
tate " in heaven itself — the lost angels and arch-angels. 

To these questions we can only answer as yet that 
"within" were "the things which must be hereafter." 

We may vainly endeavor to conceive how John watched 



DIVINE PLAN OF CREATION, AND SALVATION. 173 

that boob, and what should be done with it. A strong 
angel proclaimed with a loud voice and asked, " who is 
worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof?" 
Surely some mighty being will come forward clothed with 
arch-angelic purities, and open those awful seals. Doubt- 
less there was deep "silence in heaven," as on another oc- 
casion, and doubtless all watched eagerly for such a majestic 
volunteer; but in vain they watched — "no man in heaven, 
nor in earth, nor under the earth, was able to open the 
book, neither to look thereon." Still all waited and hoped 
against hope, but no one came, and John "wept much be- 
cause no man was found worthy to open" this mysterious 
book, till one of the elders came and comforted him, saying 
to him " weep not; the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root 
of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose 
the seven seals thereof." The elders are considered by 
theologians the representatives of the redeemed; and cor- 
rectly so, no doubt, as appears from the 9th verse of chap, 
v. But neither these representatives of the redeemed nor 
any of the heavenly hosts could open those mysterious 
seals — but He and He only w T as worthy to do so, who was 
in majesty "the Lion of the tribe of Judah," and in gen- 
tleness a lamb — a "lamb as it had been slain." He alone 
could show the mysterious purpose of the Godhead, 
hitherto partly hidden, but now to be brought into the 
open light and proclaimed plainly to all, to the full extent 
of their capacity, to understand this grand result of the 
councils of eternity. And what was this mysterious pur- 
pose ? We read that when this lamb that had already been 
slain took the book "out of the right hand of Him that 
sat upon the throne," all the heavenly hosts "fell down 
before Him, having every one of them harps and golden vials 
full of odours, which are the prayers of the saints. And they 



174 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

also sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the 
book, and to open the seals thereof, for Thou wast slain 
and hast redeemed us to God, by Thy blood, out of every 
kindred and tongue and people and nation; and hast 
made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall 
reign on the earth." The narrative twice speaks of the 
book as held in the right hand of Him that sat on the 
throne — betokening that the revelation was to be a mani- 
festation of Almighty power. 

It seems that thus far the lamb had taken, but had not 
opened the book, for there are no other praises than those 
of the heavenly hosts, and those already redeemed, and the 
cause assigned for their praise is that accomplished redemp- 
tion. But in the 11th verse John commences another reve- 
lation, which evidently indicates what took place after the 
opening of the seals of the book. Now were disclosed 
" the things which must be hereafter" which John so eagerly 
desired to know, viz: what should be the course of this 
world, its sins, its wars, its famines, its pestilences, its per- 
secutions, its death on the pale horse, and all else that 
should afterwards occur, till that grand final consumma- 
tion, when all evil should be brought to an end, and 
" Death and Hell" should be "cast into the lake of fire. 
This is the second death" (Rev. xx, 14). Oh blessed 
word ! the lake of fire, which is the second death, is the 
death of death and hell! Then John's heart must have 
glowed with joy and exultation. He says " and I beheld 
(what was in the book, no doubt), and I heard the voice of 
many angels round about the throne, and the (living ones), 
and the elders: and the number of them was ten thous- 
and times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; say- 
ing with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain to 
receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and 



DIVINE PLAN OF CKEATION, AND SALVATION. 175 

glory, and blessing." Now observe — in the first song of the 
elders and the heavenly hosts at the taking of the book, 
and before it was opened, the praise was declared to be on 
account of the redemption of the former, and these two 
classes alone join in it. But now when the book is opened 
and the glorious vista of redeeming love clears up before 
them (as subsequently set down in order for us by St. 
John in the Book of Revelations), there is no longer any 
room for specific praise, but all thought, all feeling is swal- 
lowed up in the matchless glory of the revelation and of 
Him by whom it was revealed. And now the elders and 
the heavenly hosts are no longer alone in their exultant 
praise. Now, in John's vision, those who were still the 
victims of sin on earth, and those— wondrous truth! — 
those despairing ones who inhabited the dismal abode of 
the lost, whether they were angels or men, broke forth like 
the sound of many waters, shouting in unison with those 
already saved the song of a redeemed and perfected uni- 
verse. "And every creature which is in heaven and on earth 
and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are 
in them heard I saying c blessing and honor and glory and power 
be unto Him that sitteth on the throne and unto the Lamb forever 
and ever. J " 

This was no "enforced" song. It was a joyous and ex- 
ultant shout of irresistible praise and thanksgiving, from 
every creature in heaven, earth and hell. For let it be ob- 
served — First. The words "under the earth" are almost if 
not quite universally conceded by theologians to mean, as 
already said, the inhabitants of hades and hell; and the 
word "sea" is likewise held to describe a great multitude 
anywhere, or the infinite ether in which float the manifold 
works of God. Second. The inhabitants of heaven, the 
representatives of the redeemed, and all that were in 



176 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

earth, or under the earth, or anywhere in boundless space 
— sing the same song, at the same time, and in the same 
terms. 

We have now adduced texts that seem to us" conclusive. 
We know what distortions of them all have been made by 
the traditional theologians in order to explain them in 
accordance with their views. We know how men (we our- 
selves, not less than others in all save in capacity) can read 
almost anything they choose into Scripture, by ingenious 
explanations of some things and learned smotherings. of 
others. We present the texts we rely on in their sim- 
plicity, to speak for themselves, only calling attention to 
their salient points. There is scarcely one of them that 
can be rationally explained, if fairly dealt with, in con- 
sistency with the traditional dogma of hopeless punish- 
ment, and they each and every one conform to our view. 
In the absence of anything, fairly interpreted, to the con- 
trary, either one of them is unanswerable as an authority 
in favor of our position. Taken together, in accordance 
with the principle of law above laid down, rising as they 
do in cumulative force, and each giving strength to the 
other as in a bundle of rods, they point unanswerably to 
the* ultimate elimination from God's universe of the dis- 
cord of sin and sorrow, and to the ultimate restoration of all 
things to the love and favor of our Father in Heaven. He 
has spoken it. 

"Sing ye heavens, rejoice earth," the love of Christ, 
tender, alluring to the mind, sweeter than life itself to the 
heart, shall warmly beam upon the soul; and then, either 
now T or hereafter, the robe of sin by which it is imprisoned 
— though all the more closely folded to the heart by reason 
of the . very deadness and coldness of penal blasts — shall 
gladly be thrown off. Here are disclosed some of the 



DIVINE PLAN OF CREATION, AND SALVATION. 177 

mysteries of Christ's sacrifice. It works moral miracles, it 
makes the filthy clean, the darkness light, the guilty inno- 
cent, the free will submissive — in short, it removes all the 
apparent contradictions and impossibilities that may be 
conceived from the universe of God. 

"All glory be to Thee, Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, 
for that Thou, of Thy tender mercy, didst give Thine only 
Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our re- 
demption; who made there (by His one oblation of Him- 
self, once offered) a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, 
oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." 
Yes, "once offered"; once for all; once — but for all time, 
and for all eternity, and "for the sins of the whole world." It 
was conceived in the primeval counsels of the Godhead, 
and reaches forth throughout the countless ages of the 
future. All creatures in the universe may well rejoice in 
it, because all creatures in the universe shall reap its bene- 
fits. The highest archangel in heaven and the lowest 
demon in hell, each after his kind, shall in the age of ages 
be participants in the everlasting harmony and joy which 
by it shall be restored to a groaning and discordant uni- 
verse. 



178 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 



CHAPTER IV. 



OBJECTORS AND OBJECTIONS. 



AT first sight it would seem strange that any human being 
— and especially that an}' Christian who loved the 
Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity — should be aggrieved at any 
attempt to show that, according to the infallible word of 
God, His mercy and His justice can be reconciled in the 
harmony of His universe ; at any attempt to show that the 
sacrifice of Christ, the incarnation, the sorrowful pilgrimage, 
and the death of the Son of God, have a deeper significance 
and a wider sweep than he had hitherto supposed. It 
seems indeed strange that any could be distressed to think 
that God, who is over all his works, and who is " all in all," 
will some day establish everlasting peace; will some day 
bring into perfect union and communion with Himself the 
poor sinners who have lost their way to Him, or who have 
been beaten back into the misery of alienation from Him 
in this life, by the temptations of the world, the flesh and 
the Devil. Above all, it seems strange that men should be 
distressed or disturbed at the attempt to prove the suf- 
ficiency, for this end, of the stupendous sacrifice of the Son 
of God. One would think that any honest attempt of that 
sort, by a rational and pains-taking man, would be met by 
the "Godspeeds" of all who heard of it. Even those who 
had fixed opinions to the contrary formed on careful ex- 
amination and deliberation, might be supposed to say, "Go 
on, if you honestly think so ; we have failed to see it, but 



OBJECTOKS AND OBJECTIONS. 179 

if you can show it on reasonable interpretations of God's 
holy Word, we will rejoice with you, and hail the result as 
worthy of another, a higher, and a sweeter note than we 
have ever touched before in our songs of praise to the glory 
of God and of the Lamb." 

Alas! alas! how different the reception which meets 
every honest effort to search after God, if happily he may 
be found, when that effort is an unfashionable one, or when 
it ventures to question the infallibility of accepted dogma! 

Of those who thus oppose themselves to all that is not 
expressed in rigid formulas, there are two classes: 

First. Those (in whatever church) who are lacking in 
the capacity or the disposition to consider or form inde- 
pendent opinions for themselves. Of this class are some 
professional theologians, who consider it a mortal offence 
that any one should fail to submit implicitly to the ex- 
cathedra utterances of their party, which they are pleased 
to call "the Church" and who mean, even by "the Church," 
only the little branch of it to which they have given their 
allegiance. To the creed of that party or church, be it 
long or short, they accord absolute authority, however it 
may differ from the creeds of other Christian bodies, as 
honest, as prayerful and as intelligent as their own. Their 
style is that of denunciation of all who differ with them; 
and they often describe even those who question the truth 
of some dogma of theirs, not among the essentials of the 
faith as necessary to salvation, as "rationalists," "free- 
thinkers," or "skeptics." They never descend to consider 
calmly any opinions that may be expressed, or to remove 
kindly any honest difficulties in the way of what they call 
the "orthodox" creed (or their creed), for that would im- 
ply that it might by possibility be, in any point, a mistaken 
creed. This they will in no wise admit. They claim for 



180 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

it, on the contrary, that infallibility which they indignantly 
deny to the Pope or the dogmas of his church. Any creed 
or opinion which differs from their own is, therefore, an 
attempt to make war on the truth of God, and its pro- 
pounder is conceited, presumptuous and rationalistic. 

The truth is, this whole matter of creeds is a strange and 
unphilosophical one. Protestants assert against Rome the 
freedom of private judgment in religious matters-, and 
deny the authority of the church to lay down ex-cathedra a 
faith for all. Then, straightway, most of them* (each de- 
nomination for itself, and each differing from all the rest), 
proceed to propound a long series of intricate and difficult 
propositions, the greater part of which are not of the essen- 
tials of salvation, each of which requires a long course of 
study for the formation of a satisfactory opinion on it one 
way or the other, and on which not one in ten of their 
numbers, whether lay or clerical, can possibly have any 
intelligent opinion at all. These propositions are then 
called a creed or confession; and all the ministers and 
members of the denomination which framed it are re- 
quired to accept it. It is perfectly absurd that they should 
be expected to do so intelligently; and it is therefore 
equally absurd that such creeds should be made the tests 
of orthodoxy or of church membership. All those who 
accept them merely on the authority of the church, are in 
no better position than the Romanist, who must blindly 
adhere to the teachings and authority of his church, 
whatever error it may set forth. It is matter of every 
day experience, that it is one of the most difficult things 
to make any considerable number of persons agree on the 
same side of any disputed question. Juries are hung 
every day on single and simple issues. The difficulty in- 
creases in geometrical ratio, if there are many persons and 



OBJECTOES AND OBJECTIONS. 181 

many issues. How ridiculous, then, is an arbitrary denun- 
ciation of any honest thinker as skeptical or wicked, be- 
cause, having considered it, he is unable to agree with his 
critic on some one or more of these difficult and varied 
questions. In so far as creeds or confessions contain only 
the essential doctrines of Christianity — those generally con- 
sidered necessary to salvation — they are good things. Or, 
if — though containing all else that is usually embraced in 
them — they are merely to be considered as the opinions 
which the church recommends to her members for their con- 
sideration or approval, they are well enough. But when 
they are made the tests of orthodoxy, they are not one 
whit less offensive than the dogmas of the Romish coun- 
cils, or of the Pope, for both are enforced by penalties of 
one sort or another as if infallible. 

It is of such theoglogians as those above mentioned that 
Mr. Froude (with whom, we differ in many things) so well 
says in the lecture already referred to: They "are loud 
and confident; but they speak in the old angry tone which 
rarely accompanies deep and wise convictions. They do 
not meet the real difficulties; they mistake them, misre- 
present them, claim victories over adversaries with whom 
they have never even crossed swords, and leap to conclu- 
sions with a precipitancy at which we can only smile. It 
has been the unhappy manner of this class from imme- 
morial time; they call it zeal for the Lord, as if it were be- 
yond doubt that they were on God's side — as if serious en- 
quiry after truth was something which they were entitled 
to resent. They treat intellectual difficulties as if they 
deserved rather to be condemned and punished than to be 
considered and weighed, and rather stop their ears and 
run with one accord upon any one who disagrees with 
them than listen patiently to what he has to say. * * * 



182 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

They refuse dangerous questions as sinful, and tread the 
round of commonplace in placid comfort. * * * They 
repeat a series of phrases which they are pleased to call 
answers to objections; they treat the most serious grounds 
of perplexity as if they were puerile and commonplace; 
while it is notorious that for a century past extremely able 
men have either not known what to say about them, or 
have not said what they thought." 

It is such theologians as these who have provoked an 
unnecessary antagonism between true science and religion. 
Their principles, or their lack of principle, would have 
made them participants in the persecution of Galileo, and 
in the various insane assaults that have been made from 
time to time upon the facts of astronomy and geology. 
If any new facts or principles are discovered which com- 
pel a new view of some portion of revelation, they assail 
them violently and denounce their discoverers as enemies 
of the truth of God — when in fact they are only enemies 
of their false interpretations of that truth. They have 
thus often driven honest investigators into apparent an- 
tagonism with religion ; and alas! in some cases, confirmed 
in such a position those who without their misconstruc- 
tions would never have assumed it. 

If there be any system of science or of morals (and un- 
fortunately there are some) which has for its object the over- 
throw of our faith in God, and the elimination of the 
Divine Creator from His universe, then let all assail it in 
the name of the Lord Jehovah; for such a system would 
reduce our race to a condition worse than that of heathen- 
ism. But let us be very sure that any system is of this 
character, before we presume to bend our bows against it 
in the name of the Lord. It is said that Darwinism is of this 
character. It may be so. One of the bishops of the 



OBJECTORS AND OBJECTIONS. 183 

Church of England stated in a recent public utterance 
that a distinguished scientist, an advocate of that system, 
informed him that his object, in common with that of 
many others of its adherents, in supporting it, was to dis- 
pense with a Creator; and that this was the tendency of the 
system. It is folly to call any system a scientific one 
which has any object except the truth. If this adherent of 
Darwinism correctly represents its animus, it is a mockery 
to call it science — it is only a frantic form of atheism. But 
if we presume to speak in the name of the Lord, let us care- 
fully reserve our judgments till we are sure we correctly 
understand the matter. Let us accept all the facts, but re- 
pudiate all inferences from those facts which leave us the 
prey of any blind laws of matter — for these inferences must 
be false if they deny the universal and instinctive belief 
of all mankind, in all ages, and among all nations, in a 
Divine Creator. Facts once ascertained we must accept, 
and if they correct our confident but ignorant and false 
interpretations of Scripture, so much the better. They 
have often done so to the glory of God and the good of 
man, but such facts, when fully understood, have never re- 
versed thus far a single fact of Scripture, however they 
may have placed it in a new light. Let us never fear new 
facts. They, w r e doubt not, are new revelations from God> 
and as surely as God exists, they will conform to the truths 
of His Word. By showing our jealousy of facts, and of 
honest and godly investigations of the legitimate infer- 
ences to be drawn from them, we betray our lack of faith, 
we prove our fear that God's truth cannot take care of 
itself, we show that we ourselves have doubts whether in- 
deed it be His truth. Rather let us march confidently 
under the banner of the Lord of Hosts. Let us know that 
in that sign we shall conquer, and that beneath its folds 



184 THE DEATH OF PEATH. 

we ourselves shall be made to see again, at every new as- 
sault upon it, as has been seen before a thousand times — 
that the wisdom of man is foolishness with God. Let us 
greet with kindness all honest, intelligent and conscien- 
tious efforts to vindicate the glory of God for the good of 
man — even though we may differ with their advocates, or 
they may fail in their endeavor. Let us frown only on 
those efforts whose purpose is to dishonor him, and to wrest 
from our suffering race the Divine consolations they now 
enjoy. Let us frown only on enemies of the truth, among 
whom may be ranked those "blind guides" whom we 
have described, and who, by senseless clamor and unjust 
aspersions, give to those enemies the best aid and comfort 
they can bestow. 

For such objectors as these none need write, nor need it 
be material to any one what may be their judgment of 
his work, for he may assume beforehand that it will be of 
the usual sort. If they are right in their unreasoning ad- 
herence to prescribed dogma, and in their style of meeting 
difficulties, the reformation was a great mistake, and if was 
very unfortunate that the stake and fagot did not extin- 
guish at once the fiery zeal of Luther and the gentler 
pleadings of Melancthon. No one need trouble himself 
about their opinions until they have settled with the Pope 
their rival claims to infallibility; and as it is certain he 
will never come to them, they should go to him, and so 
combine a unity of dogma to be received without inquiry, 
whatever absurdities it may contain. 

But there is a second and a very different class from this, 
whom all must respect, but who also often oppose them- 
selves to all that is not set down in the formulas of their 
respective churches. It consists of those honest thinkers 
who, from what we consider mistaken notions of policy, 



OBJECTOES AND OBJECTIONS. 185 

are unwilling to disturb what has been once settled, even 
when they think it was settled amiss. While claiming no 
practical infallibility for any human interpretation of God's 
Word, whether made by their own churches or others, they 
yet fear that any revision of such interpretations once 
established may be perilous, even though just, as calculated 
to unsettle the faith and disturb the repose of the simple 
souls who implicitly believe. This is an amiable senti- 
ment, and is w 7 orthy of careful consideration ; but by such 
consideration its amiability may be shown to be its chief 
merit, since reason condemns it. It is, if sound, a valid 
bar to all progress in doctrine — all further approaches to 
that infinite truth whose depths we shall never fathom 
even in eternity. Such a sentiment, if sound, should have 
prevented the Reformation, the successive revisions of 
doctrine after the Reformation, the revision of our version 
of the Bible now going on, and whatever other step that 
may now or hereafter be taken to draw from that bottom- 
less ocean of truth — God's blessed Word — nearer and better 
views of the inconceivable wisdom and love which mark 
His varied relations to our race. 

But let us consider more particularly the various objec- 
tions that may be made to a revision of the doctrine of 
future punishment. 

And first, let us weigh the force of the objection that 
such a revision may disturb the repose and unsettle the 
faith of others, whether they be thinkers, half-thinkers, or 
those who do not think for themselves, but accept im- 
plicitly what is given them by those in whom they 
confide. 

Now we confidently lay down the proposition that each 
man on earth and all of us together are under the solemn 
obligation to God to seek first, and before all other things to 



186 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

know and make known His truth to the best of the 
ability He may have given to each of us. This we have to 
do, but with consequences we have nothing to do. God 
has not placed the latter within our ken, for it is absolutely 
impossible for any one of us to say what will be the full 
consequences of any act he has ever done, or will ever do, 
or even of any word spoken by him. Whenever men have 
assumed that they could and should shape their conduct 
by what they imagined might be its consequences, disaster 
has befallen them or others in the end, and the truth has 
always suffered by it. Look at the Jesuits. No more de- 
voted and self-sacrificing efforts were ever made than those 
of Ignatius Loyola, their founder. He honestly sought 
the glory of God, and so did many of his followers. He 
and they sought it as honestly as did Paul when he per- 
secuted Christ through His disciples. No man can doubt 
it fairly and intelligently. But, unfortunately, they pre- 
sumed to think that they could foresee the consequences 
of certain acts, and were tempted, in order to avoid certain 
supposed evil consequences, and to effect certain supposed 
good consequences, to withhold temporarily the truth — 
just as the Romish Church now withholds the Scriptures 
from the laity, for fear of their wresting it — and this finally 
resulted in the doctrine that the " end justifies the means.'' 
What hellish consequences have followed, in point of fact, 
from this doctrine, and how the truth has been buried bv 
it under mountains of error, let history tell. No, let God's 
truth appear, though it should prove every man a liar, 
whether he be pope or president, or member of councils, 
of conventions, of synods, of associations, or of any other 
human organization. Even on the score of expediency, it 
should be so; for if we are to judge of the consequences of 
a new view of the doctrine of future punishment or of any 



OBJECTORS AND OBJECTIONS, 187 

other doctrine on those whose eases we are considering, we 
may confidently believe that it is better they should have 
their faith and repose disturbed for awhile, than that they 
should hold falsely any part of the truth of God. 

Second. It is sometimes said that if the extreme doctrine 
of future punishment is reviewed, and a milder one is 
established, it will be wrested by the careless thinkers, the 
half-thinkers and those who desire to wrest it for any 
reason, and that then it will be made to mean something else, 
viz : freedom from penalty. The same views as those above 
expressed as to consequences belong here; but besides, we 
may fairly say that this is no just criticism of the doctrine 
propounded or of the act of propounding it, but is simply 
a criticism of human nature. What doctrine, what Scrip- 
ture is there, that men do not wrest? It is the infirmity 
of our nature and the influence of the Devil, which render 
this inev:'table, just as they result in every form of evil. 
But that is no reason why any doctrine or truth should be 
suppressed. If it w T ere, then St. Paul would not have 
written those " things hard to be understood," w T hich St. 
Peter tells us the "unlearned and unstable wrest as they do 
the other Scriptures unto their own destruction." 2 Peter 3 
iii, 16. 

Third. It is sometimes said that if the dogma of a hope- 
less future punishment for the sins of this brief life is 
overthrown, and the doctrine established that men may 
repent hereafter, with the hope of ultimate restoration to 
happiness, they will not fear to sin, but will rather prefer 
to enjoy all the pleasures of this life, and postpone to a 
future time their repentance and acceptance of Christ. 
And that this will be the more easily appreciated when we 
consider that even the doctrine of an inconceivable and 
hopeless torture in the future world is sufficient to alarm 



188 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

only a comparatively small number. Again, let us be re- 
minded that we have nothing to do with the consequences 
of uttering the truth, if it be truth; but as all these ob- 
jections proceed on an estimate of consequences, we must 
answer them. 

Now, we are of those who believe that it is "the good- 
ness of God (that) leadeth (men) to repentance" (Rom. ii, 
4), rather than the terrors of the law. So that even if 
those terrors could be made far more realistic than they 
are under the traditional dogma, we need not expect the 
chief fruits of the Spirit from preaching that doctrine, but 
rather from preaching the goodness and love of God. Love 
is almost infinitely more persuasive than fear. Even the 
tenderest woman who trembles at each " sudden sound or 
shock," will dare for love's sake the most fearful dangers 
from man, or beast, or nature in her wrath. And so with 
the bravest man. It is not because there is not sufficient 
of terror in the traditional doctrine to arouse men that 
they do not repent, for how could its horrors £e increased? 
But men are indifferent to the doctrine, because they do 
not believe it. Our own experience is that both with intelli- 
gent and cultivated men, and with the ignorant, there is 
most generally an open or hidden unbelief in a hopeless 
future puntshment. Hope is as much an essential part of 
man's spiritual nature as blood is of his physical nature. 
It is the very circulating principle of his soul, without 
which it would be no soul at all. It is the very spinal 
marrow of the spirit. There may be morbid or deranged 
exceptions, but if you call on a man healthy in body and 
soul to believe that there will ever be a time when he will 
endure a hopeless punishment, you call on him to believe 
that which is contrary to his nature, and therefore he 
cannot believe it. He may accept and even subscribe 



OBJECTOES AND OBJECTIONS. 189 

to your doctrine as one which you and others think most 
fitting, for some reason, to be expressed in formula; but 
as to taking it into his healthy soul as part of his living 
faith, he will not, and he cannot. He will go from your side* 
even though he be a minister of the altar, to the death 
bed of one whom he and all believe to have gone down, 
according to the dogma, to a hopeless misery, and he will 
comfort himself and the bereaved ones with the words — 
"he is in the hands of a loving God and Father who made 
him, and will be just and merciful even to him," He will 
thus — it is done every day — admit into his own mind and 
inject into those of others that indestructible hope which 
his dogma repudiates, but which he still clings to, because 
it alone can comfort him or them. 

Even if it consisted with man's nature to believe from 
his heart in a hopeless state, men will not believe that any 
intelligent and immortal creature could be consigned to it 
by Divine power so long as they believe that "God is 
love;' 1 for nothing can persuade them that in some way 
justice and love will not work together with Omnipotent 
power for the ultimate well being of that creature. 

Let God's truth be preached then without any reference 
to those consequences which He keeps within the sphere 
of His own control in a manner unfathomable by us. But 
we may still say that if we are to consider consequences 
at all in answer to such objections, it will appear that the 
preaching of a punishment not hopeless but reformatory 
will be far more effective than the ancient doctrine of 
hopeless horrors, which was first made obligatory by sec- 
ular authority centuries after the existence of the primi- 
tive church (see Part I, chap. V), in order to control the 
conduct of ignorant and turbulent races, who could be re- 
strained only by superstitions or by fears, 



190 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

God indeed sets before us rewards and punishments as 
motives to turn to Him and live; but surely we need not 
exaggerate those punishments. In their real condition, 
they are sufficient for moral discipline, and that is their 
only end. Are they not? Suppose one of us should be- 
lieve in his heart that in the course of twelve months he 
would certainly be hanged on a gallows unless he brought 
some gift mysterious and hard to find to the judge who 
sentenced him : would he not, like the Peri so beautifully 
painted by the poet, compass heaven and earth to find it? 
Would he not endure fatigue, hardship, heat, cold, weary 
days and sleepless nights with eager soul to find it? Would 
he not begrudge every moment lost from the search and 
rejoice with a joy entirely inexpressible when he found it? 
And why? — because he believed that he would thus escape 
a great temporal evil. Well, then, suppose one of us believed 
from his heart that if he did not come to Christ in this brief 
life, he would not only suffer the pangs which come from 
sin in his own experience here, but for an indefinite period 
after death, perhaps for many ages, — or, at least, till he 
should turn from his sinful state and come to Christ. Sup- 
pose he believed from his heart that those pangs would be 
intensely increased by the absence of all earthly allure- 
ments and deceptions, and by the unseen realities of the 
spiritual world, — alienation from God, separation from the 
blessed dead even of his own household, companionship 
with all that is unclean and abominable, remorse of con- 
science, and all else that we can conceive of the bitter sor- 
rows of hell, — would not the motive be sufficient? Would 
not these " terrors of the law 1 ' stimulate him to all needful 
effort with a force inconceivably greater than that which 
moved him to escape a temporal punishment? No stronger 
stimulant could be supplied in the way of penalty — nay. 



OBJECTOKS AND OBJECTIONS. 191 

none so strong, for this punishment is credible by all; and 
as was said before, it is only unbelief that could deprive 
a future punishment of its power. That unbelief will 
ever be, not only a stumbling block in the way of the 
traditional dogma, but much more, and far worse, the uni- 
versal incredulity of men as to the doctrine commonly 
preached about future punishment, has a reflex action, 
and causes skepticism as to the whole religious system to 
which it belongs. We believe, on evidence furnished by 
much observation in the general and the particular, that 
more men are kept out of the church, or indulge in skep- 
tical opinions, by reason of the doctrine of a hopeless 
future punishment, than by any other single impediment 
whatever. We believe also that it renders forever insolu- 
ble the problem of the existence of evil, and produces in 
all minds a sense of unrest at its apparent injustice under 
the sway of an all-wise and Almighty Ruler. The Apos- 
tles' Creed is the most universally accepted of all that have 
ever been penned. It contains all that is necessary to sal- 
vation. Cannot the churches unite on that, and preach 
all that is there set down for doctrine? Their preaching 
would then be as comprehensive as the universal faith, in- 
cluding that dread bar of judgment, before which we shall 
all stand, both " quick and dead." But it would not contain 
the doctrine of a hopeless punishment — for that creed, be it 
well observed, requires us to believe in the "life everlasting," 
but says nothing of everlasting 'punishment. 

The Episcopal Church is more liberal on this, and on 
all questions, than most of the others. She nowhere ex- 
pressly declares or defines this doctrine, but leaves her 
people to draw from the Word of God their own opinions 
on it. She is thus liberal on every other question — for 
though she lays down her opinion on various subjects, by 



192 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

way of guiding those who desire or seek her counsel, yet 
she only binds her members in baptism to "believe all the 
articles of the Christian faith as contained in the Apostles' 
Creed;" and her ministers are enjoined in ordination to 
draw all their counsel from the Holy Scriptures, holding 
as she does in her Article VI, that "whatsoever is not 
read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be re- 
quired of any man (whether minister or layman) that it 
should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought 
requisite or necessary to salvation." Beyond this she lays 
no burdens on the consciences of ministers or people; and 
though in her liturgy her people pray in the language of 
Scripture to be delivered from "everlasting damnation," 
yet she nowhere defines these words to mean a hopeless 
punishment, but leaves them to be defined by every man's 
conscience in the sight of God. This is wisdom. If ail 
the churches would pursue a similar course, the Gospel of 
Christ would have free course and be glorified, by identifi- 
cation with the essential doctrines of salvation as contained 
in the Apostles' Creed, and by liberty in respect to all non- 
essentials. 

Fourth. But the most common of the objections to any 
mitigation of the extreme view grows out of the seeming 
injustice that a man should enjoy all the unlawful pleasures 
of this life, steep himself in all wickedness and all abomi- 
nations, and yet should be thought capable hereafter of en- 
joying the bliss of heaven in company with him who has 
studiously denied himself all forbidden pleasures while on 
earth. Now tnis is an objection more apparently than 
really just. Though it seems to be based on justice, yet its 
root is rather in self-righteousness and a false estimate of 
the sins of others. 



OBJECTORS AND OBJECTIONS. 193 

It rests chiefly (a) on false ideas of earthly pleasure ; 
<b) on false ideas of the comparative guilt of different sins 
and different sinners ; (c) on inadequate ideas of the effect 
of repentance. 

(a). Rightly considered, no earthly pleasure can be 
weighed for one instant in the same scale with the heavenly. 

"Go, wing: thy flight from star to star, 
From world to luminous world, as far 

As the universe spreads his flaming wall : 
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, 
And multiply each through endless years, 

One minute of heaven is worth them all !" 

Besides this, earthly pleasures, even the best of them, 
are more or less mixed with sinful excess; and the worst 
of them are w T holly sinful. In truth, even to him whom 
we call the good man this world affords little happiness, 
-and that little is afforded onlv because it is linked with 
heavenly things. But he who enjoys this world for its own 
-sake alone, is constantly deluded by the hope of happiness, 
yet really reaps instead perpetual unrest or actual misery. 
Let no one, therefore, envy him who seems to reap earthly 
joy, or think that he has received anything which, if de- 
nied to another, would produce injustice. 

"Poor race of men !" said the pitying spirit, 
41 Dearly ye pay for your primal fall — 

Some flow'rets of Eden ye still inherit, 
But the trail of the serpent is over them all !" 

(b). But the false ideas which we harbor as to the com- 
parative guilt of different sins, or of different sinners, are 
«till more erroneous. Men have a code of their own in 
regard to sin, even when they acknowledge Scripture as 
^supreme. Sins against person and property, such as 
9 



194 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

murder, forgery, stealing, lying, rape, seduction, &c, thejr 
hold to be the most deadly arid unpardonable, as well as 
disgraceful — for self-interest guides them in this judgment,, 

and 

"If self the wavering balance shake, 
It's rarely right adjusted." 

But sins against one's self or against God, of a different 
kind, such as fornication, irreverence, prayerlessness, swear- 
ing, covetousness, and the like, they consider far more ve- 
nial, and they cloak them with the charitable suggestion 
that they spring rather from weakness than from malice 
(as if in this respect they differed from the other class of 
sins) ; and thus they 

" Compound for sins they are inclined to, 
By damning those they have no mind to." 

Nay more, he who commits these last named sins is well 
received socially, and if his covetousness has been grati- 
fied by success, he is not only well received, but is honored 
by almost all, and is pointed out to the young as a model 
for their imitation, for public spirit, for enterprise, and for 
good citizenship. 

But God's ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our 
thoughts. He ranks the sins that men call venial and 
treat with toleration among those which they call disgrace- 
ful, and enumerates them over and over again in the same 
lists in His Holy Word. In truth, the sin for which men have- 
the greatest toleration — covetousness — He puts before them 
all in guilt, for He declares it to be idolatry, the deadliest 
sin that man can commit against his Maker. 

Again, man looks at the outward sin, but cannot look on 
the heart, and therefore cannot justly estimate the com- 
parative guilt of any two men, however the one may be- 



OBJECTORS AND OBJECTIONS. 195 

apparently depraved, and the other apparently moral. 
Moreover, he cannot understand the circumstances under 
which any sin or sins may have been committed. He 
knows not the force of the temptation, the degree of re- 
sistance, or the anguish of the fall. Hence, God, who 
knows all these things, forbids us, as individuals, to judge 
our fellow men under any circumstances ; and tells us that 
we have neither the right nor the capacity to do so, and 
will surely err if we attempt it. It is an instinctive appre- 
ciation of this truth which makes us hide our sins most 
anxiously from our fellow-men, even when we are sure of 
their love for us; while we willingly confess them to God. 
We know that He fully understands the whole case, and 
is "full of compassion" for us. One who felt from ex- 
perience the injustice of human judgment, thus sweetly 
deprecates it : 

"Then gently scan your brother man, 

Still gentler sister woman ; 
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang, 

To step aside is human : 
One point must still be greatly dark,, 

The moving why they do it. 
And just as lamely can ye mark,, 

How far perhaps they rue it. 

u Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 

Decidedly cau try us. 
He knows each chord — its various tone, 

Each spring— its various bias : 
Then at the balance let's be mute, 

We never can adjust it ; 
What's done we partly may compute, 

But know not whaVs resisted." 

You see that poor wretched parricide, who has sounded 1 
all the depths and shoals of unspeakable iniquity and 



196 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

abominations, and has now crowned a life of crime and 
shame by slaying the father that begat him. You know 
that if he is now released from arrest he will be ready 
to shock your moral sense, and that of the whole world, 
by any other crime which his abandoned nature may sug- 
gest. Do you despise him and judge him ? Judge him 
not — he may be in God's sight , yea, if you knew all, in your 
•own, a less guilty man than yourself. Are you offended at 
ihis? Then consider that his lot has been cast from in- 
fancy among depraved associates and in moral darkness; 
that he has had no instruction, no culture, no spiritual 
opportunities; and that his depravity is a growth as natural 
in his circumstances as the growth of his beard. Despise 
not the sinner, then, though you detest the sin. Rather, 
turn your eyes from his sad case, and cast your gaze into 
the dark depths of your own heart. Rehearse to yourself 
the secrets of your soul. You have been cultivated and 
watched and tended from your childhood by God ? s agents — 
your parents and friends, and His ministers. Do you not 
blush when you look over your past life ? Have you never 
shocked your own moral sense by your vile thoughts, or 
words, or deeds? Would not some of them shock the 
moral sense of the world if they were fully known? One 
of the purest female writers in modern literature says what 
has been repeated and approved by others — that if the 
secret sins of thought, word and deed, of each of us, were 
written on our brows, each of us would shrink away from 
every other as from a leper; for each would see his neigh- 
bor's crimes, but would not see his own. This is a good 
illustration of the abysses of corruption in the human 
heart, and of that self-righteousness which judges others. 
Look, then, at your sins in this wa}^, and then say, if you 
-can, that you are holier than that poor, abandoned parri- 



OBJECTORS AND OBJECTIONS. 197 

cide. Throw the first stone at him. Dare to lift up your 
brow, if you can, and say — " 'Master, this man was taken*" 
in such and such sins, 'in the very act,' and he deserves ta 
die eternally; for he is not susceptible, as I am, of Thjr 
great salvation.'' Oh! blind Pharisee; you know you dare^ 
not do so; you, and all the other judges with you, must 
go out one by one, judged yourselves out of your own 
hearts and mouths. 

(c). But still worse are the inadequate ideas of the ef- 
fect of repentance, though we have only space to glance at 
them. 

You judge that poor parricide for his sins, deep and 
black indeed, but perhaps no worse in God's sight than 
your own. But suppose they are far worse in guilt. Sup- 
pose he is, by comparison with yourself, as odious as you 
think him, and that you may justly consign him to a hope- 
less ruin because of those sins — yet you cannot do so, if he 
repents. If he .once takes hold on Christ, no matter how 
terribly he has sinned, "it is God that justifieth ; who is he 
that condemneth?" (Rev. viii, 33). In that case you cannot 
despise him. On the contrary, if he repents, you must pity 
him, and desire his pardon ; for no mortal can witness, with- 
out compassion and forgiveness, the painful writhings of 
remorse, and the tearless wailings of a broken heart. 

" Who by repentance is not satisfied, 
Is nor of heaven nor earth ; for these are pleased ; 
By penitence th' Eternal's wrath's appeased." 

In truth, there is much misunderstanding on this whole 
subject. Boswell tells us* that when England was spoken 
of as a Christian country in the presence of Dr. Johnson, 
he admitted that it might be so called as having the Chris- 
tian religion established in it, but not because those who 



*; 



198 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

professed it generally understood what it was: for, said he, 
.go now on the street and stop the first ten Christian men 
of intelligence and culture you meet, and ask them what 
the Christian religion is — nine in ten of them will prove 
by their answers that they do not understand it. It is to 
be feared that there is great truth in this, even at this day. 
Most people will speak now-a-days of "the saints," of 
"the holy," of "the righteous," with the idea that they are 
describing people more or less free from actual sin, and will 
contrast them with " sinners," as if these saints were not sin- 
ners themselves. But Scripture speaks of all as "sinners," 
and in the Scripture sense the "saints," the "holy," the 
righteous," are so named not with reference to their free- 
dom from actual sins, but with reference to their self-de- 
votion as strivers against sin, and as those who, having no 
righteousness of their own, seek by accepting Christ to be 
clothed with His righteousness. 

This mistake manifests itself everywhere, both in the 
church and in the world. Men say, "these Christians are 
no better than we are" as if that were the test of their Chris- 
tianity, instead of the honest purpose and effort to serve 
God in Christ, however ineffectually. They are often right 
in saying that even true Christians are no better than they 
are. Oftentimes they are not so good in a moral sense as 
some men of the world, even though honest Christians — 
by reason of differences of temperament, opportunity, 
temptation, &c. But at the bar of God the difference be- 
tween them will be found to be, that one has repented and 
striven against his sins, and taken hold of the hand of 
Christ, held out to him; while the other has rejected that 
bleeding hand, and held on to the world's hand. "Saints" 
are simply struggling sinners — witness the testimony of Paul, 
of John, of Isaiah, and of all the sacred writers; and many 



OBJECTOBS AND OBJECTIONS. 199 

a, struggling sinner, whom the church and the world regard 
as abandoned, is in truth a struggling saint — weak, and for- 
ever falling, but repentant. 

An able professional man and an earnest Christian, of 
peculiar temperament, fell under public and private cen- 
sure, but for no disgraceful conduct. He was put a in Cov- 
entry " by many of his associates. We believed him un- 
fairly judged and unjustly dealt with, and made no change 
in our conduct towards him, except to manifest increased 
consideration for him. He fell into excess, in bitterness of 
spirit. More than once afterwards, he staggered up to us 
on the street, and with pathetic tones and tearful eyes, 
quoted to us an extract from one of his own poems, repre- 
senting the aspirations of his soul, however he may, in 
human weakness, have fallen short of them. 

• ; Be ever thus, howler forlorn, 

Still fix on high thy steadfast gaze, 
Trample, in calm but noble scorn, 

On human blame or human praise. 
Then, though thy path be thunder-riven, 

Though hateful pit-falls crowd thy way, 

Still ever trust, and meekly pray, 
Thy Father — God who is in heaven." 

Do yota judge this man? We judge him not. With tears 
then, and tears now, we confess that he may have been a 
better Christian than either of us; weak enough like our- 
selves to fall into sin, but strong enough to look to Christ 
in spite of his sins. 

Let us cease judging others; let us recognize our inca- 
pacity to understand, far less to define in the slightest de- 
gree the different merits or demerits of men, in even one 
of the innumerable varieties of character and experience 
which in fact exist. We will then cease to think any man. 



200 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

unworthy to be a candidate for eternal life, however low* 
he may have sunk; and we will be much more likely to 
consider our own ways than to criticize those of others. 

Our theory, to which this last objection is made, disarms 
it; for that theory recognizes the restoration of no man, be- 
his sins great or small, who does not "repent and believe;"' 
and the only point in which it differs from the traditional 
view on the subject is, that it holds repentance to be pos- 
sible for all sinners, in the future world as well as in this. 

Fifth. The historical objection to any change in the tra- 
ditional dogma has been already answered in Part I, ch.v* 



REVIEW AND CONCLUSION. 20 lJ 



CHAPTER V. 

REVIEW AND CONCLUSION. 

OUR task is now completed. It only remains to guard 
against misconstruction. We beg, in the name of 
justice and of that gentle charity which "thinketh no 
evil," and, better still, worketh it not, that no one will mis- 
represent our position, as if we were opposed to future- 
punishment, or to any punishment necessary for moral dis- 
cipline. Should he do so, he will only increase what he 
may consider evil, besides weakening any fair and candid 
dissent from our position. Let no reader say, let no hearer- 
think, that we have uttered more or less of doctrine than 
is here written down. We now record it in brief, that all 
we have meant to prove by the preceding pages may bo- 
seen at a glance, and we do this, especially, that if any 
man shall unhappily bear false witness against us his> 
neighbor, he may hereby be convicted of having done so^ 
wilfully. 

First. We believe in our "heart of heart," and here 
propound the doctrine of " eternal" or "everlasting pun- 
ishment," in the terms laid down in Scripture; but wo- 
hold it to be "eternal" or "everlasting" in the sense that 
it is to be a punishment "taking place in eternity," and to 
endure as long as the sinful temper endures. 

Second. We believe that by the necessity of marts nature, he 
must be capable of repentance after the dissolution of the* 
flesh, as well as before that dissolution — since the capacity 



202 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

for repentance is a necessary attribute of the soul and not 
of the body; and since the capacities of the soul can in 
no sense depend on their connection with the body, which 
is an impediment in the way of their full action, rather 
•than an aid to them. 

Third. We believe that the motive for repentance w r ill be 
inconceivably quickened by the realities of the future 
world; and that the capacity, co-existing with a stronger 
motive, will stimulate to repentance there those who failed 
to repent here in a much more effectual manner than was 
possible in this life. 

In this belief in the capacity of the soul for repentance 
hereafter, consists, we repeat, our only real difference with 
the traditional dogma. 

Fourth. We believe that the Scriptures support this view, 
and teach the consequence, which a priori we would infer 
from it that it will ultimately result effectively in the resto- 
ration of all created things to the favor of God, their 
Creator. Thus the problem of evil will be solved by con- 
verting that evil into an eternal good. 

These conclusions, neither more nor less, are those which 
we consider established by the preceding argument. For 
still further security against misrepresentation, we now 
also review the argument itself and present an analysis of 
it, in such form that its weight as a whole may be seen at 
a glance. Of course we can give only the skeleton of the 
argument, but its course and its leading points will be 
plain enough. 

We have submitted — 

First. That life and death cannot be explained by man, 



KEVIEW AND CONCLUSION. 203 

but are revealed by God alone; and that they are denned 
as follows in His Holy Word : 

(a). That life is the "breath of God," by which man was 
made immortal, body and soul — an immortality conferring 
happiness, but conditioned on conformity to the will of 
God. 

(b). That man violated the condition, and by sin in- 
curred the forfeiture— dying, body and soul, the instant that 
he sinned; and that this death is not what in common 
terms we call death- — viz: the dissolution of the connec- 
tion between soul and body— but a condition of the mind or 
soul, resulting in its immediate misery and the future ruin 
of the body. The man who is not " in Christ " is as dead now 
as he will ever be, should he even become hereafter a "lost 
soul" — the difference between the two conditions being 
•one — not of kind, but — of degree of misery. 

(c). That though thus " dead while he lives," his body 
will only return to the dust at its "appointed time," and 
that his soul does not consciously suffer complete misery 
till then- — by reason of the distractions of this world, and 
his present incapacity to appreciate the unseen realities of 
the spiritual world, in consequence of the superior influence 
over the mind of the things that are seen and temporal, as 
^compared with the things that are unseen and eternal. 

(d). That the dissolution of the body and the death of 
the soul are due to alienation from the "Life of God," in 
whom alone w T e are alive. 

(e). That provision is made by the death of Christ for 
restoration to the "life of God," which carries with it, for all 
who accept it before the dissolution of the body, the re- 
newal of the soul's happiness, and its conscious rest in 
Christ, in the place of departed spirits, after that dissolu- 
tion has taken place. 



204 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

(f ). That the old body being hopelessly dead, "because 
of sin," and soul and body united in immortality being ne- 
cessary for one in the "image of God," a new body will 
arise at the resurrection from the old, as a flower from the 
germ, and be united to the soul in indissoluble union — 
both free forever from danger of another fall, by likeness 
to Christ and heirship with Him in glory. 

(g). That those who do not accept the provision made 
for them in Christ, before the dissolution of the body, have 
no part in Him in this world, and go into the "place of 
departed spirits," still "dead in trespasses and sins"— just as 
they were here, and with the same conscious suffering, but 
intensified by a realization of their position not possible 
while they were on earth. 

Having thus laid down on the basis of Scripture the 
nature of life and death, and their consequences, and shown 
that the happiness of the redeemed will endure as long 
as the heirship of Christ shall endure, the question arises- 
whether that condition of soul, which the Scriptures call 
death, is capable of being changed by a renewal of the 
"life of God" in the soul, after dissolution of the flesh as 
well as before that dissolution. 

And here commences the real issue between the advo- 
cates of the traditional dogma and ourselves. 

We then submit that the "life of God "is capable of 
being renewed in the soul after dissolution, just as it is be- 
fore; and that without such renewal, the holiness of God r 
which is indisputable, cannot be vindicated in connection 
with the existence of evil. 

We then show that none of the various theories as to 
the future condition of the lost, including what we con- 
stantly call the "traditional theory," can vindicate that 
holiness, but that they leave the whole subject in mid- 



REVIEW AND CONCLUSION. 205 

night darkness and gloom. On the other hand, we submit, 
in full competition with them, our theory, as a complete 
vindication of that holiness. And we proceed to prove it, 
as follows: 

Second. God's holiness — his justice and mercy — are ut- 
terly inconsistent with the creation of a being, certain to fall 
immediately after his creation (for life is but a moment in the 
eternal scale) into hopeless sufferings, "of which it is infinitely 
beyond the highest archangel's power to conceive the 
thousandth part of the horror," 

And it is no answer to this to say, as Dr. Bledsoe does, 
that God could not prevent man from sinning after he was 
once created, without a violation of man's nature and His 
own, and the consequent working of a contradiction in coerce- 
ing a willing obedience and love: for though this is true, he 
•could have forborne to create one who would fall immediately 
into those pangs in spite of all that Divine power could do 
to prevent it. 

Nor is it an answer to say, as he does, that the glory of 
<5od and of His universe required the creation of such a 
miserable being; for no glory could be reaped, or could be 
justified, if capable of being reaped, from such horrible 
and immortal misery of any creature whatever. But, 

Third. The creation of an intelligent and immortal 
teing — necessary by reason of those very qualities to the 
glory of the universe — can not only be justified in view of 
God's justice, but applauded in view of his love and mercy, 
•even though he will be sure, in the exercise of his free will, 
to fall into sin and sorrow : provided a provision is made 
capable of redeeming his fall, and so potent that ultimately it 
will restore him to God, stronger than when he fell: and 
provided the suffering incurred by the delinquent is no 
more than necessary for the moral discipline of his pecu- 



206 THE DEATH OF DEATH. 

liar nature. On the conditions stated, the temporary fall 
will not only, as a foil, enhance his ultimate joy and glory r 
and make the sufferings necessary for their attainment in- 
significant, however severe temporarily ; but those suffer- 
ings will prove to be good and only good, since they were 
the only means by which free-willed immortals, away from 
their Father's home, could attain the highest felicity of 
which they were capable. 

That such a provision has been made, and that such ul- 
timate security will be attained by all, appears from the 
following considerations, which are fully set forth, and, as 
we think, satisfactorily established by the argument: 

(a). There is no word or text in Scripture which, fairly 
interpreted, compels the belief that there is a hopeless 
punishment in the world to come. 

(b). There is nothing in the nature of man, or in the 
nature of sin, which forbids us to hope that the lost soul 
may repent and return to God in the future life. On the 
contrary, since it is the same soul, with all its essential 
faculties unimpaired, and since the death of the soul in 
the hereafter is precisely the same as its death here, viz: 
alienation from God — only more keenly realized, in its 
sorrowful consequences, there than here — it is more likely 
to repent there than here. 

(c). This life is a probationary school, de&igned to edu- 
cate us for another and higher life, and God our Father is 
our school-master. The rule of His conduct towards us in 
those relations is the conduct of a wise and good earthly 
father (as we call good) towards his children — only how 
much more wise and better than he!. No good and wise 
earthly father could confine his children to one trial of 
their difficult duties, in one session or school, and then cut 
them off utterly as the penalty of one failure. Nor can 



EEVIEW AND CONCLUSION. 207 

God do so. So that without the doctrine of repentance in 
the future life, or that of another probation, we cannot 
give effect to His word revealing his paternal relations to 
us, nor realize in its simplicity and truth the wonderful 
glory of our filial relations to Him. 

(d). On the basis of that doctrine, all sorrows and be- 
reavements and losses, all inequalities of fortune, all inequalities, 
of spiritual opportunities, all inequalities of spiritual suscepti- 
bilities, all inequalities of spiritual endowments of any sort, and 
all difficulties in respect to the existence of evil — can be ex- 
plained, and reconciled with the holiness of God. But 
without that doctrine, dismal and eternal gloom surrounds 
all these questions. 

Fourth. The doctrine pointed out by these considera- 
tions is not only fortified, but established by Scripture texts 
that can in no way be rationally explained, except in ac- 
cordance with it; nay, though strong by their individual 
force, they concur in one direction, each strengthening the 
other in a geometrical ratio; and thus they conclusively 
establish the doctrine, which alone can vindicate the holiness of' 
God, in connection with the existence of evil. 

From these texts we learn that God's countenance will 
not be withdrawn forever from His unhappy creatures who 
have rebelled against Him, for that this would result in their 
annihilation, which cannot be; that therefore he has pro- 
vided a means by which "all manner of sm" shall be for- 
given — "in this world" and "in the world which is to* 
come" — here if the provision be accepted here; there if it 
shall be postponed to the hereafter. Hence the Saviour- 
is described as in an especial manner the Saviour of those 
who come to him here; but as being also the Saviour of 
the rest in some sense. He is therefore the Saviour of 
these last in the next world, for as they rejected him in. 



208 THE IDEATH OF DEATH. 

ithis life, he is in no sense their Saviour here. In further 
.proof of this, the Scriptures declare, in various places, both 
in the Old and New Testament, that at the name of Jesus 
every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, whether of 
those in heaven, earth or hell; and this He has sworn by 
Himself. That this will not be an enforced, but a glad, ex- 
ultant confession, appears from various texts. 

That He " will (thus) have all men to be saved," appears 
from the fact, that He gave Himself a "ransom for all," 
which is to be " testified in due time " by the result. That 
result is to appear in the " fulness of times" when He will 
"" gather together in one all things in Christ;" for "having 
made peace (everywhere) through the blood of His cross," 
God will thus " reconcile all things to Himself," whether 
"they be things in earth or things in heaven. Nay, even 
the things in hell shall be partakers of this joy, for this 
gracious Saviour " went and preached to the spirits in pri- 
son" the glad tidings of that universal peace. 

Therefore, " as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall 
all be made alive" But there can be no peace so long as 
death, the son of sin and father of hell, exists; and, there- 
fore, not only Christ, "the first fruits," and those who shall 
be His "at His coming," have escaped or will escape death 
at the resurrection, but the whole universe shall escape 
>death: for after the resurrection, Christ "must reign till He 
hath put all enemies under His feet," the last of whom 
shall be death. Then, 'death will be destroyed — yea, abol- 
ished — by being cast with hell into the "lake of fire," which 
is the second death. 

Over this glorious cousummation att creatures, in God's 
•entire universe, rejoice with a holy joy that fills the ear of 
'God with the melody of an harmonious and everlasting 



REVIEW AND CONCLUSION. 209 

homage And so unbroken peace shall at last be estab- 
lished by the blood of Christ betvveen God and his erring 
creatures^ never more to be d : sturbed by sin or sorrow or 
death. 

So it is written, blessed God, thou Father Almighty, 
" therefore with angels, and archangels, and with all the 
company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious 
name, evermore praising Thee and saying, Holy, Holy, 
Holy Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of Thy 
glory; glory be to Thee, Lord most high! Amen! 

We have now uttered what we believe to be God's truth — 
that evil shall not triumph over God in any case, but that 
He shall triumph in every case over it; and that there will 
come a glorious day when angels, and archangels, and men, 
and all creatures in heaven, and on earth, and under the 
earth, and in the sea, and all things that are therein, shall 
unite in jubilant and exultant shouts and songs of praise 
and thanksgiving at the overthrow of all sin, and sorrow, 
and separation in the universe of God, and the restoration 
of that universe to the favor of its Creator. 

But let no man wrest what we have said — let no man 
presume upon it — to continue in sin ; for if the affecting 
evidences of God's love and favor in Christ ; if the " beautv 
of holiness;" if the sorrows, bereavements and disappoint- 
ments which surround us here, are not sufficient to bring 
us to Christ, the discipline of sorrow and suffering neces- 
sary to that end after death, may exceed all that we can 
imagine, though it will at last attain the end for which 
it was appointed — the instruction of men and angels, and 
the restoration of the harmony of the universe* 

Rather, let us all work out our own salvation " with fear 
and trembling," that we may escape the bitter sorrows of 
10 



210 THE DEATH OF DEATH, 

sin in this world and the next; and so join, immediately 
after our dissolution, with that great "assembly and church 
of the first born which are written in heaven," in everlast- 
ing joy in the presence of our Saviour and our God. 



'IHE END 



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